


Four Strings and Second Chances

by Vashoth



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Friendship, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-it fic, Honestly everyone needs a hug or seven, Hurt/Comfort, Inseparable best bros, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Ukulele bullshit included, and a reanimated dead squid, tw: suicidal recklessness mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-18 01:24:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11863734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vashoth/pseuds/Vashoth
Summary: It was reluctance to let one of his finest inventions ever out of his grasp that made him take a couple days over a week to send the arm to Pepper’s office. But all things considered, Tony figured that sending finest prosthetic that had ever come into existence--literally grasping an olive branch--was one of the classiest gifts he’d ever given. He’d included a note and everything.‘Barnes,Can help with installation. Or not. Up to you.--Stark'





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fix-it fic. And it will be nauseatingly fluffy; eventually. But fair warning: this is easily some of the angstiest shit I've ever written. Or, as I told [Amy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/amethystina), it's "a little rough." She'll forgive me. Someday.
> 
> It's rated M because of some dark themes, but there's nothing that isn't touched on in canon. Some of it is just... dwelled on. [Ivo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ivoughrie) yelled at me for like 30 minutes straight, as did [Dreamy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamcatchersdaughter), and [Kam](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kamaete) just made heart eyes at me after extensive warnings that there was nothing but pain ahead. So. I dunno, reader. Approach this at your own speed. Proceed with caution.

It started out as a distraction. Something to keep his mind off of, well. _Everything_. Plus it wasn’t like he hadn’t made about thirty different sets of prosthetic legs for Rhodey first. So it’s not like he _immediately_ locked himself in his lab and cut himself off from the rest of the world. Just, y’know. Eventually. Once Rhodey could walk alright and all that. And it’s not like it was unusual for Tony to put his stress into his suits, either.

 

Pepper had been enabling him too. She might’ve claimed ignorance to the fact--not that Tony would have ever been able to work up the nerve to ask--but she had been kind enough to let him skip as many meetings as humanly possible. The ones he couldn’t skip? He was allowed to attend remotely through holo-projection.

 

His only remaining obligations took the form of a single highschool student that had a little too much brain for his own good and a penchant for studying the biological mechanics of arachnids. (Read: Peter Parker.) That hadn’t really helped either, if Tony was honest with himself. The whole bio-engineering side of things hadn’t really appealed to him until he was ass-deep in trying to figure out nerve ending hook ups for Rhodey’s legs but, as it turns out, stuff got infinitely more interesting once you abandoned the limits of human capacity.

 

Still didn’t mean that he was about to abandon the whole Iron Man schtick in favor of taking on some kind of animal theme. That would be _batty_.

 

So really, identifying the suits as having potential for advanced prosthetics was a natural progression. The fact that the most advanced responsive prosthesis that he’d ever seen belonged to the man that had murdered his mother was just a coincidence.

 

It wasn’t that hard to understand why he would want to replicate the arm. He had to start somewhere, right? He’d had the clarity of mind to scoop up the remnants of the blasted off arm before his jet had arrived to take him home, thank god, so he wasn’t starting entirely from scratch. He could’ve, though. If he’d wanted.

 

His memory was pretty good and the videos of the whole fight helped a ton. He’d watched it hundreds of times. Had every moment memorized. Every word. Maybe replayed some moments more often than others. But that was only so he could watch the way the plating on the arm shifted as the Winter Soldier moved. So he could study the articulation in the fingers that tried to rip the reactor out of his armor. He could replay the whole thing in his mind from all the various angles and fuzzy video feeds he’d snatched from the suit’s recording functions and from the security cams Zemo had been watching from.

 

But no matter how often he slowed it down to quarter-speed, there was only so much that the footage of that fight could tell him. (“He’s my friend!” “So was I.”) So he moved onto the footage of the car crash. For more data. He studied the way the arm supported weight, how the fingers didn’t give any against Howard’s throat, how the movements seemed clunkier when the dead body dropped from his grasp. How it weighed on the Soldier’s movements in a way that seemed hindering even if the inconvenience didn’t register in the blood splattered blank stare.

 

Blank wasn’t the right word for it, Tony thought, but it wasn’t until he’d watched the clips of the Soldier’s fight with Ste-- _Captain America_ that the difference was clearer. The arm was in better condition in that footage anyway. The upgrades that had been applied since the murder of Tony’s parents were not only apparent in the way the soldier carried himself, but the image itself was clearer even if the video from onlookers catching everything on their StarkPhones left a lot to be desired in the way of steady hands. It didn’t hurt either that the arm hadn’t yet had the shit beat out of it by the vibranium shield that had been sitting in the corner of his lab since he’d returned. Hadn’t fallen out of a helicarrier yet, either.

 

He had paused and rewinded for the hundredth time or so, the copy-cat prototype in his lap still only barely resembling the real deal, when the right word flicked through his mind. Mechanical.

 

Not the arm. The stare. The whole look. Shit, even the movements. The Winter Soldier fought with the precision and ruthless efficiency that reminded Tony of the first computer that had been programmed to outmaneuver humans in chess. He moved smoothly, without hesitation. When he got hit, it was an intentional sacrifice that would bring him within deadly reach of his target. He didn’t seem to register pain. Those cold eyes just flickered across the battlefield and took in variables. Variables that took the shape of people. Variables that took the shape of the Winter Soldier himself.

 

The side-by-side image comparison between the Soldier’s fight with the Captain and his own fight against the two of them really drove the difference home. Whatever had happened in that helicarrier must have been significant, because the mechanical assessment was gone. No, not gone. Changed. He still moved with ruthless efficiency. He still hit hard in a way none of the Avengers ever had.

 

But the weight of the variables had changed. The Soldier’s eyes still scanned the room for cover the second he entered it, still catalogued every exit, every scrap piece of metal that could be weaponized, and still kept the barrel of his gun raised high enough to kill at a moment’s notice. The variables--the people shaped variables--weren’t quickly filed away with the rest, though. His gaze had lingered on Tony beyond the assessment he’d given Black Widow back when he was on his last mission from Hydra. The same cold grey-blue eyes darted back and forth between the former Captain and Tony as they spoke and glinted with something Tony couldn’t put his finger on. Fear, maybe. Concern. Resignation.

 

An unlikely combo, sure, but video didn’t lie. No matter how unflattering the picture.

 

And the arm reflected whatever the hell it was that had changed. Not just in the dents and dings, but in the whirring of plates and the nervous tapping of fingertips around the grip of his weapon, finger far enough away from the trigger that it almost looked like the man still held out hope that he could avoid fighting altogether. It was the same jumpiness in his movements as he scaled the wall. The harsh ticks and clicks that couldn’t just be chalked up to rusted innards or fried wiring. The nervousness came down from the chain of command, from the man himself. Side-by-side, Tony could see it. When he’d fought in Manhattan, the Winter Soldier had been an ill-fitting name because it implied ‘human’ instead of ‘murder bot’. In the bunker, he’d still been ruthless. Still been disturbingly efficient. But he hadn’t gone for the kill until he was backed into a corner. Hadn’t really gone for the kill at all. Just tried to disarm. Y’know. Violently.

 

Initially, Tony ignored it. Everyone got nervous and twitchy the after getting shot at. That Barnes had been spooked wasn’t some glowing testament to his character. He’d still killed Tony’s mom. Had still stood there silently, watching the tape like he was trying desperately to replicate the cold nothingness that had been left behind in the helicarrier. But science didn’t kindly remain only in comfort zones, so Tony watched it again and again. Played both clips side by side. Played every clip he had, having FRIDAY surround him with it on all sides like the world’s most depressing amphitheatre.

 

Like the videos of Barnes, the prototype started as a depressing imitation of the real thing. It took the better part of a year for the thing to resemble the real thing. By then, he no longer got that horrible lump in his throat when he watched the clips, and only felt the dim ache of sorrow that had been residing under his gut since he’d gotten the news when he was seventeen. It took nearly a full year after that before the arm had been tampered with and tweaked to operate more smoothly than the arm in the videos. Bitterness still filled his mouth at the clips when he compared them, but Rhodey’s legs were better than ever and the mechanics of Peter’s toys had an unprecedented response time. So, it was worth it because Tony got to fix things again and that was kind of his thing.

 

The thing was, he kept watching the clips. All of them. They didn’t offer any more data that he needed. The arm he created was better than the original, and it was time to apply his own working model’s features to his suits. To steal away the thing that had caused so much pain and force it to protect.

 

FRIDAY thankfully didn’t comment as Tony insisted on replaying the clips. She didn’t comment while Tony watched the Winter Soldier’s fist close around his mother’s throat for the umpteenth time, feeling like every single person captured in that footage had been dead from the start of the recording. Or when Tony’s teeth gritted harder than before when the maskless Soldier shot the camera after the fact as he realized that he must have been operating under the orders to allow the whole thing to be recorded first--because Hydra had wanted the footage to be found as it was. Or the pang of pain that spiked through Tony’s heart as his focus shifted from the arm to the heart wrenching pain written across the Captain’s face as the Soldier tossed the Captain like he was a rag doll. Didn’t comment when Tony paused the clip of his fight in a new spot and watched as Barnes threw his remaining human arm up to block the repulsor beam that Tony had aimed at the former Captain’s chest. Watched as Barnes screamed when he lost his arm. Again.

 

Tony stared at the finished arm, held aloft with supportive wiring above his worktable and let his eyes fall on the mangled remains of the original still tossed carelessly in a cardboard box next to the shield that had begun to collect dust. It was probably symbolic for something, he mused, but he’d never been good with that kind of thing. Or the whole ‘feelings’ thing in general. But he was pretty sure that the flutter of guilt in his stomach was probably not the appropriate reaction.

 

“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” Pepper repeated calmly with the same patience she’d used to explain to Tony that maybe building suits for everyone he had ever been marginally fond of was probably not wise.

 

She was tucked up on the couch in his lab, hair down and messy, with her eyes locked on the smaller model of the StarkPad that he’d made for her back when they had been dating. She’d complained once that the screen was too big for her hands and of course Tony had taken that as a personal invitation to disappear until he’d made something better. In hindsight, he wasn’t sure why the screaming match that had happened upon his return hadn’t been something he’d predicted.

 

The way her eyes slid across the fake pages of the electronic book she was reading did absolutely nothing to fool Tony, though. It was feigned casualness at its finest. Whatever the hell she was trying to get at, she was doing so tactically in a way that she believed would make Tony listen. And odds were good that she was probably right. Which made Tony feel a weird combination of suspicious, intrigue, distrust, and gratitude.

 

She tapped the page once, softly and began reading again. “I’m not saying that you have to apologize.”

 

“Good,” Tony quipped. “Because I’m not going to. The _former_ Captain America--”

 

Pepper sighed and mumbled something like ‘you can just call him Steve, Tony,’ that he resolutely ignored.

 

“--was wrong. He fucked up. I’m not going to fix his mistakes for him just because he got to be a national icon once.”

 

She shrugged and tucked a stray hair behind her ear before letting the StarkPad rest on her lap so that she could look up at him carefully. Tony pointedly looked anywhere else. Even as Just Friends, Ms. Pepper Potts had the unfortunate ability to make him confront his shit dead-on. It was why he’d invited her over to talk about his situation, but it didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

 

“So let me re-cap again,” she said. Tony pulled the new arm off of it’s stand and futzed with the open wiring at the shoulder. “You spent a year and a half obsessively re-watching your fight--”

 

“Analyzing. For data. About prosthesis.”

 

“Fine. You spent a year and a half obsessively _analyzing_ your fight--”

 

“And not just my fight. The clip from… that night. And the Winter Soldier’s first public debut. And--”

 

“My point is,” Pepper interrupted in that shut-up-Tony voice that made him press his lips into a thin line. “My point is that you don’t seem to be obsessing over Steve Rogers. At least not intentionally. You seem to be obsessing over--”

 

“You think I’m obsessing over James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes?” Tony spluttered. Pepper rolled her eyes and held up a hand to hush him but he blathered on. “The man that killed my mother? Murdered her in cold blood? You think that’s why I can’t come to terms with this? Because I feel bad for him?”

 

“No.” Pepper shook her head. Then paused and glanced up at the ceiling. “Well, maybe. Sort of.”

 

Tony scoffed.

 

“Not that you feel bad for him, I mean,” Pepper waved her hand vaguely at the new arm. The one that was way better. Because of Tony. “You fix things, right?”

 

“Yeah, it’s my _thing_ ,” Tony repeated.

 

“I know it’s your _thing_.” Pepper’s lips curled up at the corners. “All I’m saying is that a few things got broken during the whole dispute. Rhodey’s legs. The suit. Sergeant Barnes’ arm.”

 

“And? So?”

 

“And so,” Pepper continued, “you fixed Rhodey’s legs. Then the suit. And made a new arm.”

 

“Only so that I could use the design to improve the aforementioned _legs_ and _suit_.”

 

“Then why did you keep improving it?” Pepper said pointedly and Tony’s mouth snapped shut mid-word. She sighed. “You don’t have to forgive him. Personally, I wouldn’t. But you said yourself that the arm acted differently when he was less Winter Soldier and more--”

 

“Skittish feral cat with a side of _murder_ _?_ ”

 

“--of a person,” Pepper finished. She moved the StarkPad down on the couch beside her and laced her fingers together. The smoothie of suspicion, intrigue, distrust, and gratitude was back. “I think you may have unintentionally humanized him, Tony. I think… I think you watched those clips enough times that you started to see a scared and broken man that went through hell.”

 

“How horrible for him,” Tony deadpanned.

 

Pepper grinned humorlessly. “You should know better than to try that devil-may-care act on me, Tony. I know you care. A lot. Probably too much.”

 

Tony snorted and looked back down at the arm in his lap.

 

“You see someone hurting and you can’t help yourself,” she said, scooting forward a little and trying to catch his gaze. He stayed silent and stubbornly kept his eyes fixed on smooth metal plating. “Doesn’t matter if they deserve it or not. You fix stuff. It’s your _thing_. Remember?”

 

He pressed his lips together and didn’t add anything. Pepper was still watching him, he could feel it, waiting for his response. He wasn’t trying to be difficult in not offering any, either. What was he supposed to say to that? ‘Sorry Pep. I know I’m fucked up, but it’s a surprise even to me that I’m feeling sympathy for the guy responsible for the deaths of millions.’ There wasn’t really a hallmark card for this kind of talk.

 

“Do you remember what you said to me after Afghanistan?” Pepper’s voice was quiet and vulnerable in a way that he hadn’t heard since… Well. He wasn’t sure.

 

He looked up at her and got caught immediately in soft eyes and the immaculately applied highlighter that covered up the dark rings Tony was probably responsible for. At least 50% responsible for. Her eyes searched his and he remembered immediately why he had been trying to avoid eye-contact. The lump in his throat was back when he shook his head.

 

“When you came back, you threw yourself into your work. Moreso than usual, even.” She laughed a little but there was no mirth in it. “I had never seen you like that. I tried to stop you, tried to lecture you like always and you said,” she paused to put on that face she made when she was imitating him and dropped her voice low. “You stood with me through all that destruction and now that I’m trying fix it you want to abandon ship? I shouldn’t be alive. Not unless there was a reason. I’m not crazy, Pep. I just finally--”

 

“--know what I’m meant to be doing,” Tony finished softly.

 

“Yeah,” Pepper said.

 

“Yeah,” he repeated.

 

Pepper’s hands danced across the holographic projections until she pulled up the clip from his fight in the bunker. Wordlessly, she tugged the playback button across the video line until the video showed Tony’s hand raised, aimed at Barnes’ arm. She hit play and Tony looked down at the arm in his lap as he heard the destruction of the one he kept in a cardboard box. She paused the video again, then swiped until the image disappeared entirely.

 

“You wanted to destroy,” she said quietly. “Not to protect anyone, but because you were hurting.”

 

Tony opened his mouth to defend himself and she quickly hushed him.

 

“I would have too. Anyone would have, Tones. She was your mom.” She barely bit back another sigh. “I’m not saying this to justify the feeling. Just trying to help you find the source. I do think you were in the right. You know that, right?”

 

Tony nodded. It was weird. He wanted to lace his fingers through the metal fingers in his lap. Like it would help or offer comfort somehow. Like they weren’t modelled after the same fingers that had--

 

“And I don’t think it’s strange or sick that you made that arm to fix the thing you broke,” Pepper said, hitting the nail on the head so sharply that Tony flinched before he could stop himself. “You have a big heart, Tony. I’m not even a little bit surprised that you could find it in yourself to extend it’s range to cover a recovering ex-assassin. Hell, you’ve done it before. Remember when you practically adopted Nat after SHIELD admitted to being wary about her allegiance?”

 

“I didn’t _adopt_ her--”

 

“Or when you tried to stealthily upgrade Clint’s suite after the Loki incident? You looked up medical studies on PTSD for months--fully missing the irony, I might add--and went out of your way to make sure there was nothing the shade of the staff’s blue in the entire tower. Removed all the mind-control media from JARVIS’s library. Including _Men In Black._ ”

 

“Well, _listen_ \--”

 

“No,” Pepper pushed herself up onto her feet and brushed off the front of her skirt. She smiled. “I don’t think I will. You went on international television to defend Bruce after he destroyed half of Manhattan--”

 

“--but that _wasn’t his fault_ \--”

 

“--and neither was it your fault that you inherited a company that made weapons of war,” she retorted swiftly. “But that hasn’t stopped you from carrying the weight of every death they’ve caused, has it?”

 

Tony scowled and Pepper’s smile stayed infuriatingly full of understanding. She plucked the StarkPad up off the cushions and walked right past him to close all the windows he had open at his workspace. She even tidied up the stack of papers he’d been scribbling on before her eyes landed on the arm he still cradled in his lap. Something he couldn’t place flashed across her face and her fingers curled into her palm instead of reaching to take the arm from him. He was grateful, but he wasn’t sure why.

 

“When you’re ready,” she spoke slowly, like she was worried he’d spook him, “send the arm to my office and I’ll have it shipped to Wakanda. Then you don’t have to talk to anybody, least of all Steve. Okay?”

 

Tony nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Pepper planted a gentle kiss on the top of his head and he tried his best not to lean into it too embarrassingly. She had FRIDAY dim the lights, giving some instructions about making sure Tony ate something, or slept soon, or whatever else was on the usual Tony-Stark-Human-Disaster list. It didn’t stick in his memory the same way everything else did. Didn’t rattle around in his head the same way the shine on the arm kept his eyes captive.

 

It was reluctance to let one of his finest inventions ever out of his grasp that made him take a couple days over a week to send the arm to Pepper’s office. But all things considered, Tony figured that sending finest prosthetic that had ever come into existence--literally grasping an olive branch--was one of the classiest gifts he’d ever given. He’d included a note and everything.

 

‘Barnes,

 

I can help with installation. Or not. Up to you.

 

\--Stark’

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, friendly reminder to not character bash in the comments. Specifically Steve. This is a Steve Friendly story. And the author doesn't appreciate getting comments with Steve hate in her inbox. Save that shit for elsewhere.


	2. Chapter 2

It took another week to get a response and it was definitely not what he was expecting. Not that he’d been expecting flowers, or some sort of return gift, or the beginnings of being pen pals with the guy who’d murdered his parents or anything. He wasn’t really sure what he’d been expecting.

 

But it was not _this_.

 

“Is this supposed to be funny?” Steve Rogers’ face was hovering a few feet away from Tony’s and despite only being present in the form of a video call, still had the same intimidating effect that never failed to raise Tony’s hackles in record time. He was waving the metal arm in front of the camera. Tony winced. It wasn’t delicate, per se, but that didn’t mean the rattling was good for it.

 

“He’s lost his arm twice, Stark. Once thanks to _you_. And you send him this? What the hell were you thinking?”

 

“I was thinking,” Tony said calmly as he could, trying not to let all of the ice he so badly wanted to let into his voice actually escape beyond his control, “that I addressed the package to one Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. Not the former Captain Steven Grant Rogers. Isn’t opening someone else’s mail a federal crime? Or does Wakanda not care about that kind of thing?”

 

“Yeah, because a package that lit up every metal detector they’ve got in security that’s addressed to someone that’s supposed to be dead isn’t worthy of suspicion. Especially with your return address on it,” Steve snarled. “Bucky’s got enough shit to deal with without you trying to kill him over long-distance.”

 

“I’m sure the over-protective mother henning is a real boon,” Tony said dryly and Steve looked like he might actually explode.

 

“You tried to kill him, Tony,” Steve hissed. “He may not blame you, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten or--”

 

“Wait, hold on,” Tony held up a hand and Steve--surprisingly--actually shut up. “He doesn’t blame me?”

 

Steve went quiet at that, staring down at something off-camera. Maybe the arm. Maybe the floor. It was the same look of concern that he’d had plastered on his face since Loki’s invasion, but somehow ten times more tired. For a man that probably didn’t age, he managed to look like he’d lived through every single one of his hundred-something years.

 

“That’s not the point,” Steve said when he finally spoke again, but a lot of the fire was gone. Not all of it, of course. It was still _Steve_. And Tony tried very hard to ignore the pang of hurt and _I miss you_ that reverberated up his spine and tried to force its way past his lips without his permission. He gritted his teeth and listened.

 

“If this is some trick, some way to hurt him…” Steve trailed off. “It’s just that I know that you’re mad, and I get why, but I can’t just let you--”

 

“It’s not a trick,” Tony interrupted. He didn’t want to hear the end of that sentence. Didn’t want to know what Ste-- _the former Captain_ thought he was capable of. “In fact, there was an actual olive branch in the hand, if you hadn’t noticed.”

 

Steve’s eyes widened a little and the end of the arm was just barely in the video frame from where the man grasped it. But the softer look of confusion that interrupted his ferocity was clear as day. Tony swallowed.

 

“I fix things, Rogers.” Tony explained lamely. “It’s sort of my thing.”

 

“Tony--”

 

“And like I said. I distinctly remember addressing that package to Barnes. Not you,” Tony interrupted him before Steve could do that thing he did where he wielded his puppy eyes like a weapon. Hearing his name said like that was bad enough. So maybe he let a little more ice than was strictly necessary come back into his voice. “So if that’s all, maybe you should actually let the intended recipient make his own choices. Unless he’s back to wanting to be treated like an automaton. In which case, by all means, please keep making choices about his body for him.”

 

Rage flooded Steve’s face again and Tony didn’t feel an iota of guilt where that was concerned when he hung up.

 

But Barnes didn’t blame him. He’d blown the man’s arm off and nearly beaten him to death and _Barnes didn’t blame him_ . Maybe Pepper had been wrong about sending the arm as a means to assuage the guilt because that? That information? Somehow made Tony feel _worse_.

 

* * *

 

If the call hadn’t been expected, then Rogers actually showing up at the tower with one (1) James Buchanan Barnes in tow would’ve ranked among the impossible. Like if the realm of possibility where the former Captain’s call resided had exploded, it would’ve taken weeks for the sound of it to reach the possibility of an actual physical visit. But still, there they were, standing in his lobby like it was the most normal thing in the world. Tony had pulled the video feed up as soon as FRIDAY had informed him of his visitors. Because what the fuck else was he supposed to do with that?

 

“Sir, the front desk wants to know if the Captain and the Sergeant should be allowed entrance,” FRIDAY’s voice was remarkably gentle, but it did next to nothing to soothe his nerves.

 

Rogers was still talking, lips moving rapidly and eyes darting about the room like he expected all the cameras to be in plain sight. His voice was too quiet to be picked up on the feed, but the jittery motions and suspicious scowl he had painted on were more than enough to fill in the gaps. He still looked, well. Not angry, but. Upset. Like something had dug under his skin and refused to get out. Tony supposed he had that effect on people. Just hadn’t thought that anything he said would’ve had that sort of impact on the former national icon. It was flattering in a weird way that made his ribs hurt.

 

But Barnes was the moon to Rogers’ sun. He stood still, nodding occasionally at the chatter aimed at his ear, frowning only a little as he scanned the perimeter. His eyes still lingered on all the potential escape routes, but the tension in his posture didn’t show fear. Just habit. His left sleeve had been tied off in a knot under his shoulder and his human hand held the metal arm he’d shipped out a month ago with all the same casualness of someone holding a clutch purse.

 

Then he did something that caught Tony entirely off guard.  He rolled his eyes and gave Steve a withering look. Not that it did anything to _stop_ Steve’s incessant worrying, but the unimpressed look was affixed on the blonde man all the same.

 

It was the first thing he’d ever seen the man do that wasn’t a form of violence. Something that was unnecessary and entirely voluntary and actually demonstrated that there was a whole person with thoughts and reactions behind that impassive gaze. It was so petty, and full of sass, and weirdly human that Tony got his first glimpse of the friendship that mattered so much to Steve. And it was in the form of James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes calling _bullshit_.

 

Maybe he’d made the right call.

 

“Yeah,” Tony answered finally, “Go ahead. Let them up to the lab.”

 

“Do you wish to keep a suit on standby, sir?” FRIDAY asked, somehow managing to sound a little judgmental.

 

Tony snorted. “Yeah, can’t hurt.”

 

“An interesting choice of words, sir,” the AI monotoned and actually succeeded in prodding a laugh out of Tony. “Would you like me to pull up the video and audio feed from the elevator?”

 

“Obviously.”

 

The image in front of him swapped swiftly, and he watched the two super soldiers cram into the elevator that had clearly been built for normal sized human beings. It was hard not to laugh at the surrealness of them both, shoulder to shoulder, spanning about two thirds of the enclosed space. Steve eyed the panel of options and hesitated just slightly before pressing a button.

 

“Sir, Steve Rogers and James Barnes are on their way to the lab,” FRIDAY confirmed.

 

Tony swallowed thickly. “Yeah. Figured.”

 

“Would you like me to re-route them?”

 

He shook his head and held up a hand. They were talking again.

 

“So apologize, then,” Barnes said. His voice was low and rough, and Tony hadn’t really realized that he hadn’t ever heard it before. That surprised him more than the actual words, but not by much.

 

Rogers, being the deceptively smart cookie he was, pointed up at the corners of the elevator ceiling and tapped his ear meaningfully before saying in hushed tones, “Not here.”

 

“What? You think he’s listening in?” Barnes raised an eyebrow at him, his tone dry. “You think maybe the two idiots that tried to kill him a while back being in his own damn building might have him on edge? How _unreasonable_.”

 

“Bucky, that’s not what I meant--”

 

“Yeah it is,” Barnes interrupted. “If you’re plannin’ on fixing this, you’re not gunna get nowhere unless you quit treating it like a battle you aim to win. Stop reserving advantages. They ain’t gonna matter anyway. You’re gonna apologize, ain’t you?”

 

Rogers glared at Barnes and the former soviet assassin looked utterly unphased.

 

“I don’t see why _I’m_ the one that has to apologize,” Rogers growled under his breath. His own Brooklyn accent was more pronounced when he spoke and if that wasn’t weird enough, he also looked at Barnes like the poor guy was about to be on the receiving end of one of the former Captain’s esteemed lectures. “The accords were a terrible idea. I wasn’t going to just sign away the rights of all non-humans to be registered and monitored like they’re threats just for existing. Ain’t right. And it ain’t negotiable. M’not backin’ down on that, Buck.”

 

Barnes laughed and tossed the new arm at Rogers, who caught it with surprise. More surprised still when Barnes used his free hand to catch the man off guard with a clap on the shoulder. “You ain’t backed down from anything in your goddamn life, Stevie. My memory ain’t _that_ bad.”

 

Rogers snorted and let himself be dragged over so that the arm could be draped across his shoulders.

 

“And I’m with you. The accords were stupid. There’s never been a good deal made when only one of the parties got a say in how the deal went down. Nothin’ fair or just about it,” Barnes nodded agreeably. “Ain’t askin’ you to support it or even say that you should’ve. I got your back, you know that. Besides, didn’t that whole concept fizzle out while I was out cold?”

 

Rogers laughed sharply.

 

“What?”

 

“Out _cold_.”

 

“Oh, come on, really? _Cryo_ jokes?” Barnes shoved a snickering blond super soldier away half-heartedly. “All I’m sayin’ is that you still owe the guy an apology.”

 

“But you _just said_ he was wrong--!” Rogers spluttered.

 

“I know what I said, punk,” Barnes shot him another impatient look. He glanced up at the numbers on the elevator door, and shuffled over to the controls to press the emergency stop button.

 

“Sir, the elevator--” FRIDAY chimed in to inform Tony.

 

“Yeah, I know, I know, _shhh_ ,” Tony waved his hand distractedly.

 

“Stevie,” Barnes’ voice was gentle, and Rogers fidgeted so much with his belt that he looked like he might explode from anxiety. “Hey. Stevie. Look at me.”

 

“C’mon Buck, don’t--”

 

“It wasn’t just about the accords,” Barnes pressed on, ignoring the protest. “Lot of it was about me. That last fight in particular. Wasn’t it?”

 

“I told you, it ain’t your fault.” Rogers insisted stubbornly, clutching the arm in his grip tightly.

 

“And I told you that you’ve got some pretty shit judgment but that’s not the point, Stevie,” Barnes retorted. “You kept something from him that he had a right to know. Yes, even if it meant putting me in a bad light. I can pull off a lot of weird shit but _murder_ ain’t my most flattering look.”

 

“C’mon Buck--”

 

“Don’t you ‘ _C’mon Buck_ ’ me,” Barnes poined an accusing finger at Roger’s face and mimicked his voice so well that Tony felt a smile threatening to tug at his lips. “You’re gunna insist that nothin’s my fault til you’re blue in the face but that don’t change that the guy watched footage of his parents gettin’ killed. Then found out that you knew about it and didn’t tell him. Can you really blame him for gettin’ upset?”

 

The pent up energy Rogers had been keeping in finally blew.

 

“He didn’t just get _upset_ , Bucky. He tried to _kill_ you. Wasn’t like he excused himself for some air, or even told me to get bent. That I would’a understood. I know keeping it from him was stupid, you think I don’t know that? But he tried to take you from me and I can’t… I _can’t_ lose you. Not _again_. He _made_ me choose the second he pointed that repulsor at you. I didn’t want to Buck--”

 

Barnes’ good arm reached out again and pulled the other man close in a one armed hug. The blond buried his nose in his best friend’s neck, tucking his face under the loose strands of brown hair that were trying valiantly to escape from the messy bun at the back of Barnes’ neck. The way his shoulders heaved was new. How small Steve looked was new. And the quiet soothing muttering coming from Barnes’ as the man stroked comforting circles on Steve’s back was enough to drag the pain that had been lingering in Tony’s gut right back to the center of his heart.

 

He dragged a hand down his face and took a deep breath, letting his gaze fall from the video feed back down to the floor.

 

“Do you want me to disconnect the feed, Sir?” FRIDAY asked, again without a trace of mockery and with the utmost gentleness.

 

“No,” Tony croaked. He cleared his throat. “No, I need to see this.”

 

FRIDAY didn’t respond, but Tony could feel her concern as thick as JARVIS’s had once been and let himself wrap up in it. _Self indulgent as always_ , he thought. _Selfish_.

 

“Shit, Stevie,” Barnes’ voice was gentle again, teasing notes gone. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to upset you.”

 

“M’not upset,” Rogers mumbled from where he stayed firmly wrapped around his friend.

 

Both Barnes and Tony huffed simultaneously.

 

“Sure, sure,” Barnes soothed. “I know you ain’t.”

 

He kept rubbing at Steve’s back until the other man eventually pulled away, scrubbing a hand down his face, obviously embarrassed. Again, Tony was struck by how small Steve managed to look. Ever calm and patient, Barnes waited a minute to let Steve pull himself together before he continued.

 

“He means a lot to you, right?” Barnes asked and Tony’s stomach fell straight past his feet and down a few storeys. “Stark, I mean. He must, to get to you so badly.”

 

Steve hesitated before he nodded, looking absolutely miserable. Like a child that had his favourite toy taken away, all sullen and sulky. And Tony knew immediately that he would pretend until his dying day that that small nod hadn’t lit up his face in an embarrassing smile.

 

“Tony--Er. _Stark_ was the first person to really try and get to know me,” Steve shrugged. “Past the shield, I mean. Actually asked questions. Had the guts to call me on bad moves. Told me to stop following orders if I knew they were bad. He was… He was the first real friend I had after I woke up.”

 

“How is it that you always manage to pick out the scrappy ones?” Barnes laughed. Steve glowered and Barnes held up a defensive hand. “Sorry, sorry, that was real touchin’ and all, but. M’just sayin’ Stevie. You got a real gift, y’know that?”

 

“You’d know.”

 

Barnes snickered again. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

 

The tension eased out of the elevator, but Tony wasn’t sure his own pulse would ever come back down. He was still mad. He had to remind himself. Replay the images in his mind. Still mad. This didn’t fix anything. Steve could say sappy shit all he wanted, but it wasn’t an apology. It didn’t make up for anything. It didn’t remove the taste of bile he’d had in the back of his throat every time one of his friends asked him to take their word on something. He wasn’t sure even an apology could do that at this point.

 

“You really think I should?” Steve’s voice broke through his thoughts.

 

Barnes sighed. “Well, you said he’s made a habit outta self loathing, yeah?”

 

Tony bristled.

 

Steve nodded. “Should’a heard him when I called. He was all--”

 

“Then he ain’t gunna be the one to approach you,” Barnes interrupted. “Not if he doesn’t think he deserves forgiveness. Or if he doesn’t think he deserves to be happy.”

 

Steve stayed quiet.

 

“That means that if he means as much to you as it seems he does? You gotta make that move first,” Barnes added with a cheerful pat to Steve’s shoulder. It earned him another glare that he didn’t seem to notice. “As the resident expert in self hate, lemme tell you. It feels all kinds of entitled to even be here with the arm he made. Still can’t believe it. _Definitely_ don’t deserve it.”

 

“Buck--”

 

“ _‘Buck_ ,’” Barnes mimicked again and Steve laughed despite himself. “You told me that I deserve to live my life as me. M’still workin’ on believing it but I know that I got a lot of shit to fix before I got any chance of living with a free conscience. I dunno why your buddy made this for me but… Shit, it’s the least I can do to humour him, ain’t it? So let’s meet him where he’s at. Not try to drag’im into some complicated--”

 

Steve made a concerned noise, interrupting. “Wait, you don’t actually want the--”

 

But the other super soldier bypassed him swiftly to hit a button on the control panel again.

 

“Sure, you caught me, Stevie,” he said. “Just came here as an excuse to make you talk to your pal again so I didn’t have to deal with you moping all over the place.”

 

Steve squinted suspiciously. “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic.”

 

Barnes laughed.

 

“He _did_ try to kill you, y’know,” Steve added petulantly. “Ain’t I allowed to be angry about that?”

 

“Stevie, half the damn planet has tried to kill me at some point,” Barnes rolled his eyes. “All of whom had pretty damn good reasons. Not to toot my own horn, but you ever look at my success rate as the Winter Soldier?”

 

“Yeah, I know--”

 

“ _Ninety-nine_ percent.”

 

“--I know, Buck--”

 

“Wasn’t one hundred percent only cuz some punk in a helicarrier had to go and get all sappy on me. Big stupid blue eyes and ‘ _til the end of the line, Buck!_ ’ and suddenly my hit rate ain’t fuckin’ _perfect--_ ”

 

Rogers laughed again, whacking Barnes across the chest lightly.

 

“Besides, if this Stark guy is half as smart as you say he is--”

 

“He is,” Steve interrupted without hesitation and god, Tony couldn’t even begin processing the emotions that spun through him like a cyclone.

 

“Yeah, well. He tried to fight Captain America _and_ the Winter Soldier. On his _own_. In an _abandoned Hydra bunker_. In middle of nowhere _Siberia_.”

 

“Let the military tactics _go_ , Buck.”

 

“ _Whatever_. If he’s all that and a bag of chips? He probably misses your punk ass too,” Barnes nudged Steve with his good shoulder. But the elevator door dinged before Steve had the chance to respond.

 

Tony quickly shut off the feed, thanking FRIDAY for not commenting, as he swivelled in his chair to watch both men exit the elevator into his lab. Seeing Steve on the video feed had been one thing, but seeing him actually in person, standing in his lab like he’d never left the tower was something else entirely and Tony’s heart spasmed painfully. The man looked at Tony like he’d been stricken, mouth hanging open dumbly and hands crammed into his pockets.

 

Tony met Barnes’ eyes next, and the man’s face immediately tipped forward so that he could stare at the floor instead. All the good humour vanished in an instant. The spark of life in those grey-blue eyes clouded over like he could cram all the personality Tony had watched on the feed into some untouchable recess in his soul. The arm he still held in his grasp hung limply, and his fingers twitched over it like he wasn’t sure if he should hold it out or keep it close.

 

Meanwhile, Steve kept gaping at him like some overgrown blond koi fish and Tony decided that he’d put his heart through a blender more than enough for one day.  

 

“Installation, I assume?” he asked, putting on his brightest smile. “Good. Rogers, get out of my lab.”

 

Steve flinched. “Tony, I--”

 

“As I keep having to remind you, the invitation was for _Barnes_ ,” Tony said coolly. “ _You_ can wait in the lobby.”

 

Barnes looked up at Steve, worry clear on both their faces, but Barnes nodded and made an ushering motion. Steve swallowed and looked back at Tony. “Before I go, I just wanted to say--”

 

“Nope,” Tony interrupted feeling the lump crawl up his throat and threaten to sting his eyes with tears. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Not yet. “Whatever it is, it can wait. Out.”

 

Steve’s face fell and it took all of Tony’s willpower to stick with his decision. But he did, and Steve moved obediently behind the closing doors of the elevator. And Tony wondered just briefly if the lack of a fight about it was testament to Steve’s desire to make things right. Though he shoved that thought firmly out of the way seconds after it appeared in his brain.

 

“I, uh,” Barnes cleared his throat and held up the arm, still looking at it instead of Tony. “Thank you. For this. And the invitation. I… I’m still not sure why you--”

 

“Doesn’t matter,” Tony interrupted. “Are you ready?”

 

Barnes looked up sharply, eyes wide. Tony waited.

 

“Yes,” he said. “I mean, if you are--”

 

“Good,” Tony clapped his hands and offered a tight smile. He gestured to the couch. “Take a seat on the far right so I can access your shoulder.”

 

Barnes nodded and did as he was told, quietly handing over the arm to Tony and staring at the wiring with no small amount of apprehension.

 

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Tony explained shortly. “I made this arm based off what I could remember and what information I could scavenge. Means I’m not entirely sure if it’s set up in a way that I could actually attach it immediately. Gotta see what I’m working with first. Make sense?”

 

His fingers worked deftly at the sleeve knot under the man’s left shoulder, tugging it apart and trying to roll the fabric up and away so that he could look at the port.

 

“Here, hold on,” Barnes mumbled. His hand moved down the front of his shirt, undoing the buttons with well-practiced ease, and slipping it off of his shoulder completely. He looked up at Tony. “Better?”

 

“Much,” Tony affirmed.

 

He tugged off the silicone cap that had been haphazardly plastered on top of the open wires and set it aside. The metal socket itself looked too tight on his skin, pressing in and denting along the lines of scars. There were scars that rested parallel to the lines of the metal, calloused and firm to the touch like his skin had hardened as a way to prevent the shoulder from cutting into him. Tony pressed gently around the rim of it, trying to find the release. Barnes stared straight ahead, face carefully blank.

 

“Is there a switch or something?” Tony grumbled. “Maybe a magic word or seven? I know they were big on those. You didn’t scrub that with the rest of the conditioning, did you?”

 

Barnes looked at him for just a moment, eyes wide again before looking away. “There are no longer any active trigger words, if that’s what you mean.”

 

Tony shook his head and kept digging his fingers into the man’s skin. He just barely could feel the edges of the metal plating attached to his shoulder blade and could follow another bar of it down the side of his ribs. But there weren’t any bumps indicating screws, or loose pieces that could release the external socket for maintenance. Tony frowned and pulled his hands away.

 

“How exactly do you take this thing off?” Tony scowled.

 

The man blinked at him again, looking like a deer in caught in headlights. “Take… what off?”

 

Tony flicked some of the loose wiring and Barnes flinched hard. And that was when it started to sink in. Tony could feel the blood draining from his face and he leaned back in his chair, staring at the jagged edges on the shoulder socket from where the repulsor blast had hit Barnes.

 

“It doesn’t come off, does it?” Tony asked quietly. “The shoulder, I mean.”

 

“Oh,” Understanding sank into Barnes’ expression and he looked… relieved? “No, it doesn’t come off. It’s fused to my bones.”

 

“And by fused you mean…?”

 

The man scrunched up his nose and concentrated, like he was trying to dig through his memories with only marginal success. “Fuse ain’t the right word. Bonded, maybe? Dunno. They carved hatch marks on the bone first. Then they used a blowtorch lookin’ thing and got the metal hot enough to melt before they pressed it into the hatching. The ones on my ribs actually melted all the way around the bone, I think.”

 

Tony had to focus to keep his jaw from dropping. “Was all this in your file?”

 

Barnes shrugged. “Probably.”

 

“Probably? You didn’t check?”

 

“Didn’t have to,” Barnes snorted. “Not like I wasn’t there for it. Memory ain’t what it used to be, but that sorta thing sticks with you.”

 

Tony could feel his pulse in his ears. “You remember them soldering the base of it to you?”

 

Barnes frowned and lifted an eyebrow. “Well, yeah. Is that so odd?”

 

“You were awake?”

 

The man’s eyes widened again with realization and his mouth pressed into a grim line. He stared off ahead of him, gaze unfocused and clouded over. He shifted uncomfortably, jaw clenching just barely as the loose wiring shifted with him.

 

“And these,” Tony gestured at the wires, careful to keep his hand far enough away so as not to risk contact. “No one ever disconnected these?”

 

Barnes gave him the same confused look as before.

 

Tony rubbed at his face and tried again. “C’mon Robocop. I’m asking if you can still feel everything from the wires. Are they still responsive?”

 

“Oh,” Barnes nodded. “Yeah. Sorry. Still not great with the techno-babble. M’tryin’ to catch up, though.”

 

Tony just stared at him, one hand covering his mouth and scratching at his beard. If the wires had been live the whole time, then… Shit. _Shit_. He stared at the mess of them. None of them had any kind of labeling, or rubber coating. No protection--nothing. But there was no power source. Nothing that should’ve made the wires live to begin with. Tony stared harder like he expected the answer to present itself neatly.

 

Barnes fidgeted again. “Did I do somethin’ wrong?”

 

Tony barked out a short sharp laugh.

 

“You mean recently?” he blurted out before he could think better of it.

 

That earned him another full-body flinch and sure enough when the wires crossed, jangling with Barnes’ movement, Tony saw the tiniest of sparks jump out from the open circuitry.

 

Well. That made things _complicated_.

 

Tony pushed a hand through his hair and leaned back with a long sigh. His hand rested over the center of his chest out of habit, tapping at the spot where the arc reactor’s protective casing had been, and expecting to find hard resistance where there was none. The squeeze in his lungs was no longer the product of the damn thing trying to cram its way into his overcrowded ribcage; he knew that. He knew that it was just muscle memory telling him that he was short of breath. But knowing that didn’t seem to be doing much to dissuade his body from kicking up its nonsense, like feeling the shards of shrapnel that had long since been removed. Or feeling the press of the arc reactor against his innards. Sensing stuff that wasn’t there, hadn’t been there for a few years. His eyes rested on the wiring again.

 

“Alright Terminator,” Tony said once he found his voice again. “Change of plans. I’m going to ask you a bunch of questions and I need you to answer honestly.”

 

Barnes looked wary for just a moment before swallowing and nodding. “Yeah. Of course.”

 

“So that’s where he gets it, huh?” Tony mused out loud, ignoring the sharp look of alarm. “Rogers makes that exact same face, you know. The ‘I’m about to do something self-sacrificing’ face.”

 

“I’m not making a face,” Barnes’ brows furrowed.

 

“Sure,” Tony waved his hand. “And I’m not Iron Man.”

 

Barnes opened his mouth to say something and for a split second that flicker of life he’d seen the man display in the elevator with Steve was there, tugging up at the corners of his mouth and threatening to replicate the sly grin that still seemed so sharply foreign to Tony. But just as quickly, it was gone and his eyes were back down on his lap, staring at his right hand where it was folded on top of his right thigh.

 

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Just meant that I’ll comply. Ask whatever you want.”

 

Tony cringed. “Okay first, quit it with the whole meek and submissive thing. It’s creepy. I’m trying to run diagnostics, not practice for a career with Hydra as... whatever they called it. Handler, or something. I skimmed.”

 

Something like irritation flickered over Barnes’ face momentarily and it was more relieving to see than Tony had expected. Last time he’d seen that same expression, he was pretty sure the man was going to rip his suit off of him with his bare hands. But still it was somehow better than the subdued skittish lab rat routine. That just made Tony’s skin crawl.

 

“Second, I’m not about to go for the hard stuff. Not yet, anyway.” Tony pushed his feet against the floor and rolled his chair over to his closest desk space. “So quit looking like I’m about to ask you to justify all that murder and just answer the questions so we can move on with diagnostics. The quicker I get data, the better. Got it? We on the same page, Tin Man?”

 

Barnes nodded, eyes flickering over to Tony and watching him move like he expected an attack. When Tony came to the annoying realization that that was actually a step _up_ from what Barnes had been doing, he had to bite back a tired groan.

 

So instead he dug around in his for a minute before pulling out a pen with a laser pointer on the end of it (a gift from Rhodey), and grabbing a sheet of paper that was already have filled with equations and scribbles. He crossed them out unceremoniously, making room for himself to doodle. What with all the bone fusing and literal live-wires in Barnes’ shoulder socket, he had a sinking feeling that installation was going to take a lot more preparation than he had been expecting.

 

“Let’s start with the basics. Or as basic as we can get,” Tony grumbled. “FRIDAY, record this conversation and file it under Barnes, James Buchanan.”

 

“Would you like a new directory for this project?” the AI’s voice asked smoothly and Barnes jumped about a foot off the sofa. Tony ignored it.

 

“Yeah, go ahead and save it to a new drive and everything. We’ll want to give Capsicle a copy when this whole shebang is done with. Audio and video, please.”

 

Barnes was looking around again, less subtle than before, with a panicked twinge to his eyes that reminded Tony a little too much of the Manhattan footage.

 

“You okay there, Klondike Bar?” Tony raised an eyebrow. “Not going to freak out over a little bit of artificial intelligence, are you?”

 

Barnes’ eyes fixed on Tony and went wide. “That voice wasn’t a person?”

 

Tony rolled his eyes. “Tell you what. Why don’t you make a mental note to ask Mr. Star Spangled Bummer about JARVIS when you next get the chance, alright? I don’t think I have the patience to explain the whole concept to another nonagenarian. For right now, don’t think about it too hard. FRIDAY isn’t a threat.”

 

“Thank you, Sir,” FRIDAY chimed in, with just a hint of amusement in her voice.

 

The super soldier on his couch didn’t seem any less wary or baffled, but at least looked like he wasn’t about to jump up and make a run for it. So Tony pressed on.

 

“Alright. Question time,” Tony smiled grimly. “When was the arm first installed?”

 

Barnes frowned, looking down at the floor. “Depends. Which version?”

 

“There were multiple versions?” Tony’s pen flew across the paper, sketching a rough outline of a human skeleton. Just the torso, and as viewed from the left profile. “How many versions were there and when was the first installation of the first version?”

 

“Not long after they woke me up the first time, I think,” Barnes’ brows furrowed deeper and his fingers tapped out nervously on his thigh. “Sorry. Memory of that stuff isn’t the best. S’when they started the uh. Conditioning. There were three versions total, but the first wasn’t like this at all.”

 

“How so?”

 

“Was more like a regular prosthetic, I think. Just fit over my shoulder and was held in place by straps,” He gestured across his chest in a line. “Moved when I moved the bone, and all that. No articulation, or connection to nerve endings. I think it was… wooden?”

 

Tony paused in his sketching. “Hold on. Bone? There was bone left for you to move?”

 

“Oh, right,” Barnes shook his head and smiled tiredly. “Sorry, forgot that bit. The original amputation cut off my arm at the elbow. My shoulder was fucked to hell, but it was still salvageable. Ended up not being as useful as they’d wanted. Harder to get a heavy metal arm to be supported just by the funny bone, y’know? Shoulder plate and rib cage were sturdier. So they took it out for the second version.”

 

The way he spoke about it so casually sat wrong with Tony. Sure it had happened over half a century ago, but. Still. Holy hell. But he bit back any sympathetic comments and distracted himself by outlining the metal plating he’d felt under Barnes’ skin on the skeleton.

 

“And version two was when they started hooking up the nerve endings?” Tony asked.

 

Barnes frowned again. “I… dunno. They must’ve. I was able to move it just by thinking ‘bout it. Like a real arm and all that. They put in the metal plating, if that’s what you mean?”

 

“No,” Tony shook his head. “I meant sensory data. You could move it, but could you feel it?”

 

“Oh, no, that wasn’t until much later,” Barnes answered easily once he understood the question. “Couldn’t feel the second version at all, see, so it didn’t cause me any pain. Good for efficiency, bad for preserving the arm itself. I think they got tired or repairing the damn thing, so they made sure I could feel it and would protect it like an actual limb. Less likely to barter crushing it in order to get to the target.”

 

Tony’s pencil had stilled. “So you can feel pain? Those wires let you feel pain?”

 

Barnes nodded. “Yeah. Same pain responses as a real arm.”

 

“What about pressure? Or texture, or temperature?”

 

The man shook his head. “Sometimes a little bit but, it’s foggy at best. Mostly pain.”

 

“Well that’s depressing,” Tony said with a low whistle and Barnes snorted. He tapped his pencil on the page and stared at the doodle. “And how long have you had this most recent version?”

 

“What year is it?”

 

“2017.”

 

“Thirty-two years,” Barnes answered promptly. Then his confidence wavered. “I think. Again, my memory ain’t the greatest.”

 

Tony nodded slowly. “And you can still feel pain in it, can’t you?”

 

Barnes hesitated. “Well, sure. It’s not the most comfortable--”

 

“That’s not what I asked,” Tony snapped. “You said the sensors read pain like a normal arm. If that’s the case, then you’ve been receiving signals that your arm’s just been blown off for almost two years. Am I wrong?”

 

The man cringed and looked away, long hair falling forward to hide his features. “You ain’t wrong.”

 

“Shit,” Tony breathed. He dropped his pencil on the table and covered his eyes with his hand, pinching softly at the bridge of his nose. “Okay. We’ll come back to that. Where does the arm get its power from?”

 

“What?”

 

“Electricity. It’s juice. The thing stuff that makes it go,” Tony gestured broadly at the electronics in the lab. “Please tell me I don’t have to explain electricity to you.”

 

“Oh! No, I know what electricity is,” Barnes said with a hollow smile. “Lots of electric weapons nowadays. Plus the whole thing with the chip and the helicarrier.”

 

“Good,” Tony nodded. “Well. Not _good_ , but.”

 

Barnes chuffed. “S’fine. I know what you meant.”

 

“So your arm.”

 

“Right,” Barnes shifted so that he could look at the shoulder piece himself. “Uh, me, I think. Uses kinetic energy from my bones moving. Like when I breathe, or somethin’. Long as I’m alive and moving, it works. Worked.”

 

Tony stared at the metal arm he’d crafted, and the neatly organized wiring that protruded from the shoulder piece. There were tiny latches for where he assumed it would fit into place, and a power cord that was supposed to plug in to what he had assumed was a bastardized arc reactor. Or shit, even AA batteries. He had not expected the damn thing to be fused to bone, unremovable, and live as long as the man it was attached to kept breathing. He’d have to re-do the whole interface. Adjust so that it could run off less power, make the connection more efficient so that the precious little energy provided by Barnes’ movement didn’t go to waste. And figure out how the hell he was supposed to go about attaching the thing.

 

He sighed and rubbed at his temple.

 

“Alright, Frosty,” Tony tried for chipper, but probably came off more irritated than he’d meant. “My guesswork was pretty good, but nowhere near perfect. We’re going to have to run more diagnostics and I’m going to have to do some redesigning on the arm. So for now you will stay in the tower and I’ll bring you back in here when I’m ready for you.”

 

The man’s eyes went wide again and there it was, that fear from earlier. He nodded all the same as Tony went back over his words and tried to find the cause.

 

“You alright?” Tony asked, scooting forward to grab the silicone cap he’d dropped to the floor. It made more sense now as a means to keep the wiring as still as possible. “You look like I just threatened to murder your family.”

 

Barnes winced and visibly recoiled.

 

“Sorry. Poor choice of words,” Tony said blandly. He held up the cap and gestured to the man’s shoulder. Barnes nodded and let him start pressing the piece back into place. “Still. I’m not actually trying to scare you, believe it or not. So is there anything that would make this easier? Not that you have to do any of it at all, mind you--”

 

“Will Stevie be allowed to visit my cell?” Barnes blurted at the same moment Tony pressed the silicone into place.

 

The super soldier looked like he had tried his best to repress a full body shudder and again Tony felt that awful sticky puddle of guilt that coated his guts and tugged him in on himself. Barnes’ eyes flicked nervously from Tony to the floor, to his good arm, to the elevator, and back to Tony.

 

“If it’s too much to ask, I understand,” Barnes rambled on, “I promise he won’t try to break me out or nothin’. Or, well. He might, but. I won’t go with him willingly. And I’ll try to talk him outta doing anything stupid--”

 

“Cell?” Tony interrupted, the word finally catching up to him. “What cell?”

 

Barnes blinked at him owlishly.

 

“You think I’m going to put you in a cell?” Tony asked again, incredulous. “You’re not my prisoner. For fuck’s sake.”

 

Dark eyebrows raised up nearly to the man’s hairline and then dropped into a suspicious furrow. “Why not?”

 

Tony spluttered. “What do you mean, _why not?_ I’m not in the business of keeping prisoners, that’s _why not._ ”

 

“But I’m dangerous,” Barnes argued.

 

“So am I,” Tony returned. “Besides, what are you going to do, make sad doe eyes at me until I just drop dead?”

 

“What? No, I--”

 

“No, don’t tell me your actual plan,” Tony held up a hand. “I’ve got enough paranoia, thank you. No cell. A suite that you can leave whenever you please. Rogers can even move in with you for all I care. I just meant that staying here would mean less travel time between you and the lab.”

 

Barnes’ eyes were still narrowed. “For testing.”

 

“Yes, for testing,” Tony said exasperatedly. “And for installation. Then probably more testing after that.”

 

Barnes frowned, looking over at the arm Tony had made and chewed on his lower lip a little. Tony thought it was a testament to his patience that he didn’t rush the man into a decision and honestly considered sending Pepper a copy of the whole afternoon just to prove it. And also so that he could freak out a bit over it. Because honestly, _what the fuck?_

 

Finally, Barnes nodded. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll stay.”

 

“Good. Great,” Tony spoke quickly. “Then I assume Rogers is going to follow you like a shadow. FRIDAY, get the twelfth floor ready for our guests, please.”

 

“I already took the liberty of doing so, Sir,” FRIDAY informed him proudly. “Would you like me to direct Steve Rogers to their designated floor now? He is still waiting in the lobby.”

 

“Whoa, hold on, _a whole floor--?_ ”

 

“Yeah, do that,” Tony ignored Barnes. “He’s probably going to wear a strip into my tile if he’s pacing as much as I think he is.”

 

“Not an entirely unlikely outcome, Sir.”

 

Tony snorted, then turned back to the stunned super soldier that had stood up and was staring at Tony like he’d grown an extra head. So Tony made a shooing motion.

 

“Go on,” Tony prompted. “Go tell your Captain that I haven’t tried to kill you. I’m sure he’ll be pleased to hear it.”

 

Barnes’ jaw worked helplessly, like the words just wouldn’t piece themselves together in time and it was honestly impressive how similar a shocked Barnes looked in comparison to a shocked Rogers. Same vacant goldfish stare and everything. But the man shook himself out of it faster than Rogers ever could’ve, and seemed to resign himself to the information without a fight--something else Rogers could never have managed.

 

The cool, calculating look Tony had gotten so familiar with while watching the clips made an appearance. However, instead of following it up with a fancy knife attack, Barnes just nodded and turned to go back to the elevator. He left without another word.

 

Tony rubbed a hand over his face and smoothed down his beard as his eyes fell back onto the arm he’d made. He tried not to think of the live wires hanging out of Barnes’ shoulder, or the pain sensors that had no off switch. Tried not to focus on the metal plating that had been literally melted onto bone. Tried not to think about exactly what it must’ve been like to be awake enough to see it all happen in real time.

 

Well. It wasn’t like he was sleeping any time soon anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, friendly reminder to not character bash in the comments. Specifically Steve. This is a Steve Friendly story. And the author doesn't appreciate getting comments with Steve hate in her inbox. Save that shit for elsewhere.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for suicidal tendencies mentioned, sort of. Check the end notes if you're nervous.

There was a reason Tony Stark was called a genius and it was nights like this that proved it ten times over. Tony grinned at the adjustments he’d made on the arm’s, flicking through the diagrams projected around him and tracing his fingers along the new set up. He’d re-done the whole design to be more energy efficient, and it ran more like an actual human arm than a computer designed to mimic one. The wiring hanging from Barnes’ shoulder could be fused together into one solid metal tip and then plugged into the arm like two nerve clusters meeting in one common strand. The data from the limb would be sorted out through the connection and then sent to the man’s brain appropriately.

 

But the best part? Once the wiring had been fused and plugged in, the socket it stayed in was permanent. In fact, it had a setting that was designed specifically to mimic the nervous feedback of a completely healthy arm. In other words? An _off switch._

 

Of course to set it up, he was going to need a lot more organic data. He’d need blood samples, tissue samples, bone samples, and he’d need to do reaction tests on Barnes’ good arm where he could measure and record the corresponding brain activity. And to manage that effectively, he would have to first identify the faulty signals being sent from the broken arm so that he could block them out of his tests. But if everything went well, then he could presumably remake the arm and have it installed in a matter of days.

 

Because Tony Stark was a fucking _genius_.

 

Tony was rather proud of himself for waiting until a “reasonable” hour of the morning to call Barnes and Rogers suite. And yes, 5:00am counted as reasonable. It was an hour that people woke up at all the time before commuting to their jobs or whatever. It was when the newscasters started caring about traffic, anyway. Which he knew because he watched the news sometimes when he was working late and feeling extra masochistic. Plus he’d seen Rogers get up to go running as early as 4:00am. Waiting a whole hour after that seemed generous.

 

And if he had maybe spent that hour re-watching the clips, then that was his own business. He had wanted to remember the anger he’d felt back in the bunker. Wanted to be able to work with smooth detachment and not feel like a pile of human garbage every time the battered super soldier so much as hinted at a bad thing happening in his past. Pepper was maybe a little too right about him caring too much, but Tony was determined not to let it poison this for him. This was supposed to be a clean fix.

 

So he steeled himself and replayed the images in his mind as the video call rang. And rang. And rang.

 

“Sir, the call has been forwarded to voicemail,” FRIDAY said.

 

Tony frowned. Maybe they’d already abandoned ship. He could feel the sense of disappointment rising, but ignored it. “Try the line again.”

 

This time it rang only once before the video picked up and Tony found himself with a screen-full of shirtless James Buchanan Barnes, who was blinking sleepily into the camera with his nose scrunched up in confusion. His hair was a mess, mussed and tangled on one side of his head and the low messy bun had loosened enough to drape over his shoulder. He rubbed at his eyes with his palm and Tony definitely did not notice the way sleep stuck to his lashes, clumped up together and looking ridiculously long. The confused squinting didn’t help.

 

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Tony grinned, trying very hard to remember that the man he was looking at was an infamously ruthless killer. “Rise and shine. It’s diagnostics time.”

 

Barnes dragged a hand down his face, pausing over his mouth to cover a yawn before sitting up and-- _oh_. He was still in bed. The headboard came into view as the recording angle adjusted, sheets and pillows piled up behind him in a small mountain. The man yawned again, hand not reaching his face in time to cover it. His eyes slowly gathered up the light and intelligence Tony had been expecting, each blink making him look more and more lucid.

 

The man’s lower lip jutted out and the confusion only seemed to worsen.

 

“Stark?” Barnes’ voice was raspy and frankly it was unfair.

 

“The one and only,” Tony said. And he winked. He fucking _winked_. What the hell was _wrong_ with him? “Sleep okay? I know you’re used to being a popsicle but I’m fresh out of cryo chambers. Could ask FRIDAY to deliver a truckload of ice to dump on the bed, though. We’re not likely to get much snow this time of year, otherwise I’d suggest sleeping on the roof. Wouldn’t want you to think I was a bad host.”

 

A slow grin touched the corners of Barnes’ mouth and his eyes crinkled a little. “Nah, I think I can live without. Thanks.”

 

Tony sniffed, and nodded once sharply. “Memory cooperating with you yet?”

 

“I dunno, why don’t you try shocking me?” Barnes looked amused and Tony wasn’t sure what the hell he was supposed to do with that. Before he could stick his foot further in his mouth, Barnes’ good mood faded away along with the last of the sleepiness. He shook his head. “It’s fine. I remember. Diagnostics for the arm, right?”

 

“Right,” Tony nodded again. “So wear something that lets me mess with that shoulder. My lab is no place for strip shows.”

 

Barnes eyes glittered with mirth for a split second before he nodded and the blank look of the soldier was back. “Okay. Anything else?”

 

Tony gritted his teeth. This was going to be infinitely more unpleasant if Barnes kept insisting on his whole surrender vibe. At least Tony knew what to do with grim humour. Even if it was about Nazi torture, it was still _humor_. Probably.

 

“Nah. Eat breakfast first, maybe. If you’re into that sort of thing,” Tony babbled. He knew he was babbling, but the blank look on Barnes’ face wasn’t exactly throwing him a lifeline so he kept going. “And I’m not great at keeping track of time. Probably not as bad as you, but odds are good that I’ll forget to let you go for mealtimes unless you remind me. Better to stock up now. Oh, and bring me another mug of coffee.”

 

Barnes’ eyebrow raised just a little. “Cream and sugar?”

 

“Eugh, no. Just black, thank you.”  Tony stuck his tongue out. No reaction. “Alright, I’m gunna hang up now.”

 

As soon as Barnes’ face vanished from the air in front of him, Tony let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He never thought he’d find himself missing Steve’s lectures, or the sassy comments. He’d welcome the passive aggressive snarking even if it meant that he wasn’t talking to someone that felt compelled to do their best impression of a brick wall at all times. It was unnerving. Like Barnes was just waiting for Tony to spill information, waiting for a signal, or an order, or something.

 

Even yesterday, he hadn’t risen to any of the bait. Hadn’t matched Tony’s blows or anything. Just sat there and took it with that same look of grim resignation and god it was hard to try to fight someone that didn’t fight back. It made his stomach churn. Or maybe he was just hungry. Maybe both. Probably both.

 

Ultimately, it didn’t matter. The diagnostics were going to be over after this afternoon and the arm was going to be installed soon after that. He had a week tops of trying to make light conversation with the unresponsive wall that had killed his parents. It wasn’t the weirdest thing he’d ever done. And for a cold blooded killer, Barnes was surprisingly cute when he was sleepy. Certainly made it hard to reconcile him with the same man in the footage.

 

Well, he wasn’t really the same man at all was he? Tony chewed on the end of his pencil, frowning down at the test plans he’d scribbled down at some point during the night. The footage showed the Winter Soldier. Not James Buchanan Barnes. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been much of a point of all that torture. Or the memory wiping. Or the… well. Anything. The skills of the automaton that had been trained to kill still showed up in footage from Siberia, but something about how he moved was different. Less robotic and more human. And the Barnes he’d just had the pleasure of seeing? Hardly had a trace of that stiffness.

 

Strange to think that his mother’s murderer occupied the same body as a total stranger. Sorta like Bruce and the big green rage monster. Except less green and more leather.

 

Tony took a deep breath. Just because he was willing to accept that Barnes’ hadn’t been in control didn’t mean that he had to like the guy. Or be friends with him. Being friendly was different. It was convenient. No one liked working in uncomfortable silence. He could be professional without bonding with the guy. And being professional wasn’t a sign that he’d forgotten. Or forgiven.

 

Yeah. He would be a professional about this. It just made sense.

 

So of course when Barnes walked barefoot through the elevator doors in a tight fitting white tank top and low hanging sweats, Tony had to go and open his big mouth.

 

“Quit it with the murder strut and hurry it up, Freezer Burn.” he waved Barnes inside, snatching the mug of coffee from the man’s grasp as soon as it was within reach. “Ah, perfect. Thank you.”

 

“Murder strut?” Barnes looked confused.

 

“You know. That purposeful stride where you--” Tony waved the thought away. “Never mind. Don’t worry about it. We’re going to start with the basics and move up from there. Any allergies?”

 

It took a couple seconds for the other man to catch up with the change of topic and judging by the still slightly messy hair, Barnes wasn’t quite as awake as he wanted to be yet. He frowned, scratched at the stubble under his chin.

 

“Don’t think so. None that I know of.”

 

“Good,” Tony smiled. Barnes’ head tilted to the side just slightly like he couldn’t figure out what was going on. “Now, I know you have a different version of the serum. But I assume you have similar regenerative rates?”

 

Barnes nodded.

 

“Of course you do,” Tony sighed. “You haven’t managed to find any painkillers that actually work for you by chance, have you? It took us the better part of three months to find something for Steve.”

 

Those brows furrowed again and Barnes focused in his lap. “Painkillers don’t work.”

 

“Damn,” Tony grumbled. He flicked through the planned diagnostics, closing out the bone sample, the marrow sample, and the spinal fluid sample. He’d just have to go with whatever data FRIDAY could pick up on from afar--

 

“Wait, what are you doing?” Barnes was watching the screens with concern. “What were those?”

 

“Tests that just got cancelled. Stuff you can’t really do without painkillers,” Tony explained. “I know you’re tough and all but extracting marrow isn’t a walk in the park and I don’t really feel like adding to your already extensive CV on torture.”

 

“It’s fine,” Barnes frowned, looking at Tony with the same set in his jaw that Steve got before he charged into a fight. “Run the tests.”

 

“It’s not necessary,” Tony tried again. “Besides, if you give me permission, I could probably just get the same information from whatever medical facility treated you in Wakanda. Did you have just one doctor, or--?”

 

Barnes shook his head. “I didn’t get medical treatment in Wakanda. Psych stuff, but nothing physical.”

 

That gave Tony pause.

 

“Not even bloodwork?” he asked.

 

A wry smile curved across the super soldier’s face. “Not even bloodwork. Stevie and I’s blood can do some real damage in the wrong hands. Didn’t wanna risk it.”

 

Tony could feel himself short circuiting. “But you want me to have it.”

 

Barnes shrugged. “If you need it.”

 

“Huh,” Tony said. He stared at Barnes, trying to find any trace of insincerity, but came up empty. So he said again, “ _huh_. Weird.” And then, “ _why?_ ”

 

Cold eyes met his and didn’t shy away for once. But instead of the blank mask Barnes seemed to favour, there was a deep sorrow that lined every part of his expression. Something that went bone deep and then deeper. Tony knew. He’d felt it before.

 

“I killed your parents.” He said it like he was talking about the weather and Tony hadn’t known what he had been expecting, but it wasn’t that. He flinched back, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. But Barnes kept going. “Ain’t nothin’ I can do to change that. Nothin’ that can make it right. But you fix things, yeah? Stevie said that was your thing.”

 

Tony swallowed thickly and nodded.

 

“Whatever it is you’re getting from this, it could help a lot of people,” Barnes looked away then and Tony only felt marginally less trapped. “He trusts you, so I trust you. And I owe you. More than I can ever repay. So whatever you want? It’s yours.”

 

His jaw set again, the muscle twitching a couple times before Barnes risked another look at Tony. And Tony couldn’t have gained control over the shock that must’ve been written all over his face if his life had depended on it. Part of him wanted to argue. Wanted to yell at the man sitting in front of him until it was absolutely crystal clear that he never owed his body or his mind to anyone--for _any_ reason.

 

But the desperation that flickered behind those pale eyes was familiar and Tony knew it like an old friend. He wanted to help. Wanted to fix things that he knew damn well were the kinds of things that don’t get fixed.

 

So he bit his tongue and nodded, watching relief flood the man’s features like Tony was doing him a favor by causing him pain. In some twisted way, Tony completely understood the sentiment. Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to find a million and one excuses to shoot him up with every painkiller he could find, though. He understood but he wasn’t an _idiot_.

 

And it wasn’t his first go-around with stupid self-sacrificing super-soldiers.

 

“Well,” Tony coughed. “That’s grim. Anyone ever tell you that you’re just a ray of sunshine?”

 

Barnes looked baffled again so quickly that Tony snorted.

 

“Regular life of the party, you are,” Tony teased, standing up to go fetch his equipment in lieu of laughing at the bewildered man in his lab. “‘ _Whatever you want? It’s yours._ ’ Bet you tell all the pretty boys that, huh?”

 

He heard a snort behind him and turned around just in time to catch the small smile on Barnes’ face.

 

“You’re somthin’ else, Stark,” the soldier said, but his fond tone betrayed him.

 

“Please, call me Tony,” Tony batted his eyelashes. “I’ve spent too much time literally inside your prosthetic limbs for us to stand on ceremony.”

 

The smile, still cautious, spread just a little bit more until Tony caught a glimpse of teeth. “Sure, yeah. Makes sense.”

 

“This is usually the part where you tell me that you prefer ‘Bucky’ to ‘Murder Matryoshka,’” Tony prompted.

 

Confusion clouded over Barnes’ face again. “Who the hell is Bucky?”

 

Tony froze.

 

Barnes’ snickering broke the silence. “I’m just fuckin’ with you, Star--Uh. Tony.”

 

Tony nearly collapsed from relief on the spot. His knees even wobbled a bit. He actually felt faint. Rogers would’ve killed him if he’d somehow managed to reset all that progress and--

 

Bucky was laughing at him. “Sorry, sorry, it’s just. You should’a seen your face.”

 

“Not funny, _comrade_ ,” Tony growled and Bucky just gave him a shit eating grin. “Yeah, laugh it up. You’re not the one that would have to explain that shit to Steve. _Christ_.”

 

“Fine, sorry,” Bucky held his hand up in surrender, grin going lopsided. “I’ll behave. Promise.”

 

“Oh god, no, don’t do _that_ ,” Tony feigned horror. “I don’t think I’d know what to do with well behaved company.”

 

“Good,” Bucky said. “Not sure I remember how anyway.”

 

“Bet that’s a convenient excuse,” Tony shot over his shoulder as he picked up his supplies.

 

“You got no idea.”

 

Bucky was giving him that look again that crossed somewhere in the middle of total confusion, amusement, and curiosity. It was still more reserved version of the man than what he’d seen in the elevator, but at least he wasn’t dealing with a skittish brick wall.

 

The initial data gathering went smoothly, and Tony had blood, hair, and tissue samples all divided up and being put through the as many tests he could think of. Who knew, maybe Bucky had a rare form of tuberculosis. He _had_ lived through the 40s. Plus the guy was just so damn trusting that it was starting to grate on Tony. He’d had a good point about wanting to keep his blood out of the hands of scientists that might try to replicate the serum.

 

Probably didn’t realize how much worse of an idea it was to let anyone get the finite details of the inner workings of his arm, either. The possibility of unmanned iron suits had featured prominently in Tony’s nightmares as replacements for infantry--being able to destroy twice as much in half the time. But there was no reliable way to control the suits from afar that had as much precision as a human that could actually take in the details of their surroundings. Being able to hook someone’s brain up to an apparatus that fed them sensory input? That could change things. Could change the world, really.

 

If Bucky did realize, it didn’t seem to bother him. He didn’t really ask any questions, just followed Tony’s instructions with nothing more than a nod of acknowledgement. He’d occasionally respond to Tony’s jokes, but only mildly, and never made his own unprompted. He was polite, but it was like the whole process left him apathetic. And a little too subservient. Something about it still felt wrong. But Tony was nothing if he wasn’t a man of science, so he did what he did best--he tested.

 

“I need you to do thirteen jumping jacks with this spoon in your mouth.”

 

Bucky complied.

 

“Do a one handed handstand while reciting the alphabet backwards.”

 

Bucky complied.

 

“Stretch your tongue out as far as it will go.”

 

Bucky complied. (“ _Holy shit._ ” “Wha?” “Nothing.”)

 

“Okay, now--do you know sign language? No? How fast can you learn it?”

 

Bucky finally looked unimpressed. He puffed out a breath that pushed stray hairs out of his face and rested his hand on his hip. “And what exactly is this testing?”

 

“Oh, nothing,” Tony said cheerfully. “Except whether or not you would stand up for yourself if something made you uncomfortable. Apparently it only takes about four hours of nonsensical testing for you to speak up.”

 

Bucky’s jaw dropped and he stammered for a second before shutting it with a sharp _click_. Perhaps if Tony had more of the self preservation thing that Pepper and Rhodey had always gotten on his case about, the murderous look would’ve set off alarm bells in his head. But it didn’t. He grinned back, unabashed and facing death in a grease stained AC/DC shirt.

 

“Why?” Bucky asked after a couple minutes.

 

Tony laughed. “You can’t be serious.”

 

The look on the other man’s face begged to differ.

 

“Oh, you are. Huh,” Tony’s eyebrows shot up. “I just thought it was obvious, that’s all. No, wait, that came out wrong. I mean, it didn’t, but I didn’t mean for it to sound condescending. It’s perfectly fine if what’s obvious to me isn’t obvious to you. _Slower_ , but fine--”

 

“ _Tony_ ,” Bucky growled warningly and Tony absolutely did not feel chills go down his spine.

 

“Alright, we’ll try it your way. Jarring honesty it is,” Tony jutted his chin out challengingly and firmly planted himself where he stood as if expecting Bucky to charge. “You spent the better part of the last century as a lab rat for Hydra. While you were in their custody, you couldn’t say no. You talk a big game about being recovered, but you also told me earlier that you would be fine with me extracting spinal fluid without painkillers.”

 

“Only because--”

 

“Yeah, I know, you killed my parents, ergo spinal fluid.” Tony paused and squinted at the floor. “There’s a sentence I never expected to say.”

 

“So what does that mean, then?” Bucky challenged. “You giving up on your data just like that? Ain’t you supposed to be some kind of genius?”

 

It was bait. Tony knew it was bait. He’d heard the same damn tone coming from Steve. Knew the glitter in Bucky’s eyes from every single one of his fights with the Captain. It was absolutely, without a doubt, bait.

 

And he fell for it every fucking time.

 

“I am not giving up,” Tony bristled. “I am adding a condition to the favours you insist on owing me.”

 

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Is that so?”

 

“Yeah,” Tony said. “That’s so.”

 

They stood like that for a full minute or so, staring each other down like they were caught in the world’s slowest stand-off, un-armed (hah), and more exhausted than dangerous.

 

Bucky broke eye contact first, looking down at the floor and nodding. “Fine. What’s the condition?”

 

“You don’t put me in a situation where I have anything in common with Hydra,” Tony said flatly.

 

The jolted look on Bucky’s face was worth it.

 

“ _What?_ ”

 

“You heard me. Don’t put me in a situation where I have anything in common with Hydra,” Tony repeated. “I’m not going to do painful tests on you without painkillers. I’m not going to do tests _at all_ without your consent. And as soon as we’re done here, I’m going to destroy all of the samples I took so that there is no risk whatsoever of them falling into bad hands.”

 

Bucky stared at him. “So what do you want me to do about all this?”

 

“Simple,” Tony said. “When something hurts, you say ‘ouch.’ If you don’t want to do something, you say ‘no.’”

 

Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “I told you, I can handle pain. It’s a small price for--”

 

“And I told you not to give me anything in common with Hydra,” Tony interrupted smoothly. “I don’t care how tough you are or how much you can withstand. That’s not the problem. If you think for a second that letting me cause suffering is doing me any favours, then you need to rethink your whole approach to this redemption shit. I will not be your tool for self flagellation. Kapeesh?”

 

Pale blue eyes widened in shock and Bucky swayed on his feet, taking a step back to avoid losing his balance. He tugged his lower lip between his teeth and worried at it, fingers tapping lightly against his side. He shifted his weight from his left to his right and shuffled. He did absolutely everything except give Tony a straightforward answer.

 

“I said, _kapeesh?_ ”

 

“But you still need that data,” Bucky frowned, still not looking up at Tony. “And I don’t know how else you can get it.”

 

“You leave that to me,” Tony assured him. “I just need to know that I can trust you to say ‘ouch’ and ‘no.’”

 

Another disbelieving smile spread across Bucky’s face and lit up his features. It was insane how much different he looked when he smiled. More like the WWII Sergeant that had been famously charming, instead of the haunted man that followed Steve Rogers like a shadow.

 

“Yeah,” Bucky nodded, with a haphazard shrug. “Sure. You got it. Ouch and no. I think I can remember.”

 

“Don’t strain yourself, old man,” Tony quipped over his shoulder. “Aren’t you like, a hundred years old?”

 

He pushed aside one of the chests full of tools that floated aimlessly around the lab, wheels squeaking in protest. One of the heavier wrenches that had been dangling off the side fell to the floor with a clatter. Tony kicked it out of the way, ambling towards the tall cabinets attached to the wall. He tugged open the furthest on on the left, rummaging around until his fingers found the pill bottle he was looking for.

 

“This is the stuff I made for Cap,” Tony said, turning so that he could throw the bottle at Bucky. The man caught it, frowning down at the obviously not standard label, which had Tony’s handwriting on it, the ‘Super Soldier Suppressant’ barely legible. Not his best, but it was still an alliteration. “Takes about thirty minutes to kick in. Pop about three of those. Do you need any--”

 

He’d been about to ask if Bucky needed water, but the man had three pills in the palm of his hand, then down his throat before he could get the words. Bucky’s nose scrunched up a bit.

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing,” Tony puffed out an amused breath.

 

They stared at each other, Tony tapping his fingers at his side. The air hung silent and heavy between them, and Bucky’s eyes found the floor and stuck to it like he might find something particularly interesting there. Which was irritating, given that he in Tony’s lab. An honour in and of itself, but he was quite literally surrounded by tech he couldn’t have even dreamed of back in the 40s. And here he was adamantly frowning at the tiling.

 

Tony tipped his head back and groaned. “Tell me I’m not in for a half hour of uncomfortable silence, Barnes.”

 

Bucky’s gaze flickered back up to meet his with an apologetic half smile. “Sorry. Just… Dunno what to say. Not really a standard social event.”

 

“Kinda surprised,” Tony said. “With all the people you’ve killed, I figured you’d come across more of their next of kin than most.”

 

Bucky’s eyes went wide and Tony held up his hands placatingly.

 

“Didn’t mean it as an attack. Just meant statistics,” he said quickly.

 

“Christ,” Bucky breathed, dragging his hand down his face and slouching back in a chair.

 

Tony snorted. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”

 

He paused.

 

“Actually...”

 

Bucky looked at him incredulously.

 

“No, no, I meant,” Tony sighed, gesticulating vaguely. “It’s awful. What they did to you, I mean. But it’s also fascinating. Managed to create an entirely new person while retaining the original’s traits and skills. Awful, inhumane, and frankly nightmare fuel, but.”

 

“You want to know what it was like being the Winter Soldier?” Bucky’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline and his eyes were wide. “Are you serious?”

 

“Sort of,” Tony shrugged. He tucked his foot under one of the bars of his wheelie chair, bringing it closer. He collapsed into it, lips pursed and pulled to the side. “I’m curious. And it might be relevant.”

 

“How?” Bucky’s eyes narrowed.

 

“Well, I mean. Does the Winter Soldier still exist in there?” He prodded the side of his own head meaningfully. “The kind of still-there that could… I dunno. Send neural signals to your arm?”

 

Bucky blinked. “Are you asking if there’s a chance I’ll lose control?”

 

Tony paused again, drumming his fingers against his thigh. His heart was beating heavily against his ribs and adrenaline coursed through him without his permission. Hours of watching the clips on loop suddenly had pay-off in the form of recognizing the face in front of him. Bucky was staring at him like he couldn’t figure out how to react, ending in an uncomfortable display of neutrality that looked eerily similar to the void of the Winter Soldier.

 

“Tony?” Bucky tried again, concern warming his features a little. That was better. Kind of. “Do you want me to leave?”

 

Tony studied him. Memories of Pepper yelling at him for literally poking Bruce with a stick came to mind but did nothing to banish the curiosity.

 

It was like being stuck on top of an active volcano without knowing if it was going to blow. Sure, prodding at the crust might relieve some of the pressure keeping it from doing so, but if it was going to blow anyway then prodding just sped up the inevitable. And Tony thought he’d rather die knowing than wondering.

 

“Are you?” he asked sharply. “Going to lose control, I mean.”

 

“No,” Bucky looked pained. “Wouldn’t have left Wakanda if there was even a chance.”

 

Tony laughed hollowly. “There’s always a chance.”

 

Bucky chewed on his lower lip, brows furrowed in thought. He ran his hand over his left side, effectively holding himself. As if he could make himself smaller. Less intimidating somehow.

 

“You sure this is somethin’ you wanna know?” Bucky glanced up at Tony.

 

“No,” Tony answered honestly. “But I think I need to know.”

 

Bucky laughed in a way that didn't have anything to do with humour. It was tired and resigned and though not quite as bad as the offer to _comply_ , it was up there on the list of Things Tony Stark Was Having None Of.

 

“There is no Winter Soldier,” Bucky said simply. “Just me. They programmed me.”

 

“You were in control?” Tony asked quietly. Rage churned at the bottom of his gut, eating away any of the sympathy that had started to grow there. “You were fully aware?”

 

“Yes and no,” Bucky's voice was quieted. “The trigger words didn't drag some secondary personality to the surface, if that's what you mean.”

 

Tony said nothing. He clenched his hand into a fist at his side and focused on keeping his breathing even, and his face blank.

 

“They would say those words to me before…. Conditioning.” Bucky snorted. “Don't know why I still call it that. Torture. It was just torture.”

 

“To make you comply?”

 

“No. Sort of.” Bucky winced. “To make me afraid. To put my body into shock. A, uh… Sam calls ‘em panic attacks? S’like your body just decides to give up, lets you feel every system failing. It's hard to describe if you've never had one.”

 

“I have,” Tony said shortly.

 

Bucky glanced at him and the sorrow was back in his eyes. “I'm sorr--”

 

“Don't,” Tony interrupted. “Just continue.”

 

Bucky nodded. “The triggers were a way to convince me I was dying. To train my brain trust whoever was near me to tell me how to survive. That even if I didn't trust them… didn't matter. It was the only way to stay alive. Or prevent others from dying.”

 

“Killing others usually makes it hard to prevent them from dying.” Tony sounded bitter. He knew he did.

 

Bucky just sighed and nodded.

 

“So what, it was them or you?”

 

“For a while, yeah,” Bucky nodded. A grim smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Then they had to change their plans.”

 

Tony leaned back in his chair a bit so he could cross his arms over his chest. It felt comforting to have weight where the arc had been.

 

“Stopped carin’ about my own life. Figured that if I was such an _asset_ to Hydra,” Bucky spat the word like it was poison, “that I could do a helluva lot more damage by makin’ sure I didn't come back from my mission.”

 

That chilled Tony's blood. “You tried to kill yourself?”

 

Bucky snorted. “Didn’t have to. Just stopped defendin’ myself. Let my opponents take their shots.” He shrugged. “I underestimated what I could live through.”

 

“Then what?”

 

Again the bone-deep sadness clouded Bucky's features for just a split second before it was gone completely. Back again was the blank nothingness, the apathy of the Winter Soldier. A coping mechanism, Tony realized.

 

“They made it clear I was not the only asset. Introduced me to the red room. Showed me that I was replaceable. Showed me that I was right in thinkin’ my life didn't matter. Only the mission mattered.” Bucky was staring hard at the floor again and Tony had the sudden overwhelming urge to hire someone to paint a mural on his flooring. Maybe flowers or something. “They killed the lab tech that was kind to me when I came back. Made him sit through all the injuries I'd let my opponents inflict on me. Said his reactions to the injury would make for a great comparative study to my own. Information on how much the serum could do.”

 

Bucky quieted for a while, then cleared his throat.

 

“His name was Robert Voronov. He used to keep an episode of Star Trek on while he worked. Had no idea that his medical internship was with Hydra. He thought he was gonna get the funds he needed to go to a good medical school somewhere in Germany.” Bucky spoke quietly and there was a fondness to his features that made him seem softer. “They shot him 38 times, gutted him with a knife, and let him bleed for exactly 4 and a half hours. He didn't survive.”

 

Tony stared. For once, words abandoned him. There was nothing he could say to that. To the death of a Hydra medical officer that had no idea he was a Hydra medical officer.

 

“That’s the thing ‘bout Nazis,” Bucky continued, the softness was quickly replaced with steel. “They know they’ve got bad PR. Most of the time when they needed to bring in outside help, they’d set up camp as some medical charity, or a local support network that just happened to be close to the resources they were after. Only the little stuff gave’em away. And there ain’t anybody who wants to pick a fight over the little stuff. S’always easier to turn a blind eye.

 

Some of the folks that worked on me thought I was some high-tech android.” Bucky laughed a little. “Might as well have been.”

 

Tony gritted his teeth. “So they turned every base they made into a working hostage situation?”

 

Bucky nodded. “Never knew who was really my jailor. When I was lucid enough to remember I was bein’ kept, that is.”

 

“Why did they keep you lucid at all?” Tony asked before he could think better of it. Bucky stared back at him with those huge mournful eyes and Tony ignored the pang in his gut. “They went to such great lengths to trick you and keep you in the dark. Why not just lobotomize?”

 

A small sad smile played at Bucky’s lips and it fit him better than it had any right to. “Not much use for an assassin who can’t think for himself. Killing efficiently is all in the details. In the moment.”

 

“So the Winter Soldier’s skill--that was all just you?” Tony’s heart pounded in his chest.

 

The smile faded from Bucky’s face and left behind some strange combination of pride, shame, and anger. “Yeah. All me.”

 

Tony stood up and stretched his arms out above his head, then laced his fingers and bent at the elbows to hang his knotted hands on his shoulders. He looked around at his projects, at the graphs and diagnostics that were constantly spitting out data that he might never need. The whole lab buzzed with activity that way. It was never still. For the first time in a while, Tony was grateful for a distraction.

 

“You asked me what it’s like to be the Winter Soldier,” Bucky’s voice was quiet and firm. “The only difference between him an’ me is that he didn’t have anythin’ left to fight for. He gave up. Figured the best he could do was minimize the damage. Keep the kill count low.”

 

Tony let his eyes fall on Bucky and Bucky stared back calmly. Tony’s fingers tapped against his side. He took a short breath before he spoke. “And you? What about you?”

 

“I figure I can do better than that,” Bucky said. “Got folks I can trust now. S’crazy how havin’ a mind that ain’t fightin’ you every step of the way can make figurin’ shit out that much easier.”

 

“Going to use that tactical mind of yours for good now, hm?” Tony tried a weak smile and got one in return.

 

“Ain’t got anythin’ else goin’ on,” Bucky’s smile was wry. “And I got a lot of bad to make up for.”

 

Tony frowned. “They made you do that stuff. It wasn’t your choice.”

 

“Still did it,” Bucky shrugged. “Still gave up.”

 

Tony wanted nothing more than to sprint for the door and never look back, but he stayed firmly planted, curiosity rooting him to the spot. “Does the Captain know you still feel responsible?”

 

Bucky snorted. “Probably.”

 

“Probably?” Tony pressed. “Not for sure?”

 

“I don’t talk about it much.” Bucky scrubbed a hand down his face. “It’s unpleasant conversation.”

 

Tony nodded, conceding the point. He clapped his hands together and Bucky’s attention was back on him in a second. “That’s enough depressing stuff for today. Now I’m going to try and steal some of your bone marrow. How are you feeling?”

 

Bucky to stand up, but wobbled a bit when he tried. He frowned. “I think your medicine is working.”

 

It shouldn’t have been funny. Tony knew that. He had a wildly inappropriate sense of humour, or so he’d been told, but Tony was clever and he knew very well that a drugged up traumatized super soldier was definitely not something he was supposed to laugh at. But Bucky took one step away from his seat and slid immediately to the floor. Big bright eyes stared at the ceiling like he wasn’t entirely sure how it had gotten up there, and then slid over to look at Tony quizzically.

 

Okay, so Tony laughed a little bit.

 

“You alright there, soldier?”

 

Bucky groaned. “I feel drunk. But not a good drunk.”

 

“Red wine drunk?” Tony grinned down at him. Bucky pursed his lips as he thought about it.

 

“Tequila drunk.”

 

“ _Yikes_.”

 

Bucky snorted. “Well, what are you waitin’ for? Ain’tcha got tests to run?”

 

“I’m not going to just stab you with a bone marrow needle with no warning,” Tony scolded. “I thought we talked about the whole not-wanting-to-have-anything-in-common-with-Hydra plan.”

 

Bucky waved away the words with his hand and scoffed. “You don’t have anything in common with Hydra.” He paused. “Well. Other than me. You and Hydra have both had a doped up _me_ on the floor of the labs.”

 

“I’ll do my best not to indoctrinate you while you’re down there.”

 

Tony said as he grabbed his tray of needles and other utensils. He dropped down to the floor and sat next to Bucky’s right arm, carefully placing the tray out of reach. Steve had proven on multiple occasions to be easily startled and Tony knew from experience that a flailing super soldier often ended in broken equipment.

 

He plucked the first needle from the tray and held it carefully to the side so he could spritz it down with disinfectant before going anywhere near Bucky’s arm. Bucky still watched the whole disinfecting routine impassively. It was different than his apathy, though. There was a liveliness to him that he wasn’t trying to quash beneath layers of cold. It made his boredom appear to verge on curiosity.

 

Maybe it was curiosity.

 

He’d probably never had anyone actually walk him through his procedures, Tony thought. He flicked the syringe. “This gets the air bubbles all the way to the top,” he explained, then tapped lightly on the applicator end of the needle until a little bit of the clear liquid squirted out of the sharp end. “And that gets rid of them entirely.”

 

“Does it matter?” Bucky asked. He managed to sit up just a little, resting on his elbow for support. More of his hair had come loose from his messy bun and he puffed at it to get it out of his face. It didn’t work. He puffed again and scowled.

 

“Here. Let me.” Tony set the syringe down on the tray and gently reached out to tuck the errant strand of hair behind Bucky’s ear. Tony did his very best not to notice the way pale blue eyes widened and stared at him. “This first round is a local anesthetic. It should only pinch. With the other drugs in your system, your metabolism should be slowed enough to let it actually take effect.”

 

Bucky squinted at him as he cleaned off a spot on Bucky’s shoulder. “What does that mean? _Local_ anesthetic. Locally made? Made for locals?”

 

Tony snorted. “I think the drugs affect you more than St--Cap.”

 

“Good.” If Bucky noticed Tony’s slip up, he decided not to mention it. “Ain’t been buzzed in years.” He scrunched up his face, deep in thought. “Decades.”

 

“The ‘local’ in local anesthetic refers to localized treatment,” Tony explained, trying to distract Bucky as he injected the liquid under his skin. To Bucky’s credit, when Tony pulled the needle back out, Bucky didn’t even flinch. He was still watching Tony with rapt fascination. So Tony continued his explanation. “Meaning that this will only affect your upper arm. A general anesthetic would affect your entire body.”

 

“Like the pills you had me take?” Bucky asked.

 

“Sort of,” Tony said. He sat back. “Those were more like tranquilizers. They were tranquilizers, actually. Usually employed on horses and elephants. Or, if you’re a particularly enthusiastic archer with no sense of self preservation, Chitauri.”

 

“What’s a Chitauri?”

 

“An alien. Don’t worry about it.” Tony grinned to himself as he put the needle back on the tray. The next one he picked up was bigger and Bucky made a noise of surprise, so Tony froze. “Everything alright?”

 

“Ouch,” Bucky said, eyes bright. “Forgot to say it.”

 

The earnestness caught Tony completely by surprise. “What?”

 

Bucky smiled then, and there was no trace of the usual bitterness, no shadows lingering in his eyes or hollow ring to the gesture. “Ouch and no. You made me promise. And the shot,” he gestured at the tray, “pinched. Like you said it would.”

 

Tony stared,  struck dumb. He was supposed to be taking samples of bone marrow and spinal fluid, was supposed to be treating this whole ordeal like research. He was not supposed to be growing fond of Bucky Barnes. The soft spot he could feel spreading through his heart sounded like Pepper telling him that he’d gone and humanized the enemy again.

 

He didn’t like Bucky--he didn’t, okay?--but he was maybe sort of starting to see how he’d gotten his reputation of a charmer. The way his eyes practically glittered in delight at remembering something he was supposed to be doing paired with the quirk of lips and dimples was unfair. The lock of hair that Tony had helpfully tucked behind his ear fell loose from the gesture and Tony wanted to reach out again. Wanted to run his fingertips down that jawline. See if maybe he could pull more sweetness from Bucky with jokes and kisses.

 

 _Huh_ , Tony thought. _Well, shit._

 

Too late Tony realized he was still just staring. A flicker of nervousness cut through Bucky’s expression and Tony dug around for that silver tongue the media kept saying he had. “Ouch, huh? Too much for you to handle?”

 

Bucky relaxed again and Tony was rewarded with another easy smile. “Oh yeah. Had my arm sawed off but I draw the line at shots.”

 

Tony laughed and it felt way too light and bubbly. He wanted to punch his own stupid fluttering heart. Instead he started messing with the bone marrow needle. “Well, I understand. If you want I think I’ve got some of Clint’s bandaids lying around here somewhere. He got some cute Hello Kitty ones. Would that make you feel better?”

 

“Immensely,” Bucky deadpanned. Then he wiggled his arm a little at Tony. “I’m just messin’. Go on then,  I’m all numbed up.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

Bucky nodded, so Tony slipped the sizable needle under his skin. Bucky flinched a little and hissed through his teeth as Tony pressed harder. Tony babbled as he pushed, “I know, I know. Little bit more, and it’ll be done.”

 

He never expected to be sitting on the floor of his lab with a doped up super soldier responsible for most of the high profile political assassinations that had happened in the last century. He also never expected to be muttering comforting nonsense, especially to a guy who’d seen a way nastier side of humanity than bone marrow needles. But more than anything, he certainly never expected feeling his heart skip a beat or twelve when the aforementioned super soldier smiled through his wince and spoke with a low voice more gentle than it had any right to be.

 

“Ouch,” Bucky said through his grimace-grin. “Just to be clear.”

 

“Right,” Tony grinned back. His heart gave another traitorous thump. “Ouch.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Bucky mentions being reckless and not actively stopping people from trying to kill him so that Hydra would be deprived of their asset. 
> 
> Hey I'm back with more pain. But it's starting to get better!! Sort of. Friendly reminder that this mess ain't beta'd. All the mistakes are my own and there are prolly quite a few. Idk why you guys put up with me tbh.
> 
> \---
> 
> Hey guys, friendly reminder to not character bash in the comments. Specifically Steve. This is a Steve Friendly story. And the author doesn't appreciate getting comments with Steve hate in her inbox. Save that shit for elsewhere.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that this piece is unbeta'd and an entirely self indulgent character study of these three idiots.

 

Tony had all but herded Bucky out of his lab, grumbling something about ‘ _Ok, E.T., time to go home._ ’ Bucky had given him a blank look, but had stumbled his way to the elevator nonetheless. He’d even done this small little half-wave thing when he’d caught Tony squinting at him before the doors closed. It was far worse, Tony decided, than the smug little smirk that Steve used to have after he’d drop some clever line just in time to make sure no one else could get the last word.

 

It was worse because it was endearing. And sweet. It had an unguarded sincerity to it that Tony hadn’t seen in the people around him since he’d started actually paying attention.

 

For once in his life Tony decided to do the smart thing when it came to emotional entanglements and politely, but firmly, tell Bucky that there were no tests left to go through. That the next time Bucky’d see Tony would be for installation and that’d be it. The whole thing would be over. Bucky and Steve both could go back to Wakanda and Tony could finally see a drop in his own blood pressure.

 

Which, he realized the irony now that that meant he was stuck hovering outside of the communal kitchen while he waited for the two aforementioned super soldiers to vacate. They’d taken a truly impressive amount of time to go through each of the cartons of tea bags, quietly discussing the ingredients between them and, at one point, marvelling at the nutrition information boxes. Something about how times had changed, etc. Tony tuned out and leaned against the wall.

 

There was a long comfortable silence after they finally set a kettle on the stove. Then Bucky’s voice rang out crystal clear, saying, “I like’im.”

 

Tony perked up.

 

“Thought he was a bit abrasive at first. Constantly talking. Like he was born to walk into rooms and immediately point out the elephant. For a while I thought he didn’t even realize he was doin’ it. Figured he was just talkin to fill the silence and just happened to slip and hit every uncomfortable topic on his way there.”

 

Tony cringed. Yeah. Bucky was talking about him. That seemed about right.

 

“But that ain’t it, is it?” Bucky continued. Tony could hear the grin around the words. “He’s chargin’ right up to the things that scare’im and pokin’ ‘em with a stick.”

 

“Tony’s a brave guy.” Steve’s voice still came as a surprise. Actually hearing it in person, at least. After a year of listening to what it sounded like when Steve was fighting for his life, hearing him speak casually almost seemed fake. The words themselves definitely sounded fake. Tony’s eyes narrowed.

 

Bucky chuffed. “Scrappy little guy with a heart condition that shouldn’t be anywhere near a fight buffs himself up with impossible armour then dives into the thick of it. Sounds kinda familiar, don’t it?”

 

That wheedled a chuckle out of Steve.

 

“It does, now that you mention it.”

 

The two men fell silent again and Tony took a moment to process that Bucky had just compared him to Steve. Half of him wanted to record that bit of conversation and play it on loop over his father’s grave, but the other half had Tony up in arms. Tony wasn’t _scrappy_. And he certainly wasn’t that _little_. Everyone around him was just enormous. It’s hard to strike an imposing figure next to the freaking Hulk.

 

“What is it?” Bucky said.

 

“Hm?”

 

“You got that look. That starin’ off into the distance dramatically look. Like you’re ‘bout to shoulder something on your own.” Bucky’s voice dropped all low and dramatic as he spoke.

 

“No I don’t,” Steve huffed and Tony bit the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t laugh out loud.

 

“That’s great news!” Bucky said with exaggerated cheerfulness. Tony was again amazed by how much livelier Bucky could be when he was comfortable. Maybe someday Bucky would be like that around Tony. “What is it, then?”

 

“It’s just…” Captain Bummer started out, then trailed off almost immediately. Tony tipped his head back against the wall and wished he could groan without giving away his position. He just wanted coffee. He didn’t want to hear about whatever moral dilemma Steve had gotten himself involved in this time.

 

“There’s still so much about Tony I don’t know. There’s so much he keeps hidden. It took me a while to see it. When I first met him, I thought…”

 

Tony blinked. Had he heard that right?

 

“You bought into the persona, huh?” Bucky asked, steamrolling past any chance for Tony to keep up with his own thoughts.

Steve sounded annoyed. “Y’know it usually takes people a while to figure out that that Tony Stark is a decoy. I wasn’t the only one fooled.”

 

“Sure,” Bucky said dryly. “That’s the whole point of a decoy, ain’t it?”

 

“Yeah. S’pose it is.” Steve paused. “What gave him away?”

 

“The fact that he invited me here at all and didn’t shoot me the second he got the chance.”

 

“You thought he was going to _shoot you?_ ”

 

Tony bristled. He wanted to waltz around the corner to defend his honour. Or maybe lower the expectations down a few pegs. He couldn’t tell if Steve was complimenting him or not, but regardless he was sure Steve was wrong. And he certainly had never planned on building Bucky an arm just to kill him. That kind of defeated the point of building the arm to begin with.

 

“It was a possibility. But you said he wouldn’t, so I trusted you.” There was another long pause, and Tony could hear them putting things (presumably the cartons of tea packets) away in the cabinets. “I only get glimpses of the real guy in there but… He’s good one, Steve.”

 

“I know.” Steve spoke so quietly that Tony almost didn’t hear him.  

 

“Worth fighting to keep,” Bucky pushed.

 

“Believe me, I know.” Steve sighed. “But he doesn’t want to talk to me right now. I’m… I’m trying to respect that. He might not ever want to hear what I’ve got to say.”

 

“You really think so?”

 

“It’s a possibility.”

 

It was strange, hearing his own actions predicted like that. Like Steve was the one waiting on some other impossibly stubborn guy. Like Tony was going to be the decider of how this all worked out, instead of Steve fist fighting his way to a Cap Approved Solution. It was weirdly detached and hopeless sounding for a guy who’d honest to god showed up to his first big fight in spandex.

 

“Is my being here helping or hurtin’ your chances?” Bucky asked.

 

Steve laughed. “I dunno, are you two talkin’ shit about me?”

 

“Constantly,” Bucky deadpanned.

 

Tony was definitely going to take him up on that.

 

“Probably helpin’, then,” Steve sounded like he was smiling. Tony felt his own lips quirk up in response. The kettle just started to whistle when Steve spoke again, this time more solemn. “He’s a good man. A good hero. I trust that he wouldn’t try anything underhanded by bringing you here. He just doesn’t think like that. Whatever box he’s compartmentalized me into ain’t gonna have much cross-over with wherever he’s sorted you.”  

 

The mug in Tony’s hands was cold and memories of his father berating him for being useless compared to the great American hero, Steve Rogers, rattled around his head like caltrops in a bag of silk. The memories bled together with Steve demanding to know who Tony was without his suit, all vicious words and snapping teeth. It didn’t connect to the soft voice Steve used now. The way he spoke, Tony could almost see the little guy from Brooklyn from the old photos. There was nothing booming or commanding. Captain America sounded unsure of himself.

 

Tony swallowed thickly. He considered making a retreat, just going without coffee. He probably had a french press and a bag of beans stashed somewhere in the lab, still. He’d just misplaced it, is all--

 

“Y’know it’s funny. When I first met him, I thought he was just in this business for the money. Or the fame. Superficial stuff. But the longer I worked with him the more obvious it was that he belonged out there, savin’ the world and bein’ a hero. The longer I know him, the harder it is to imagine that he’s ever done anything else. Some people just have that shine to them, y’know?”

 

A lump lodged in the back of Tony’s throat that he tried to choke down.

 

He heard the two of them shuffling about in the kitchen and wondered if Bucky had pulled Steve in for another one of the hugs like he’d given in the elevator. His hugs looked like nothing like the hugs people gave nowadays. Tony remembered the way Bucky had pulled Steve in close and smoothed down his hair, rubbing circles between his shoulder blades like he hoped to soothe Steve through contact alone. It made Tony ache with want.

 

“Spend a whole life tryin’ to emulate that and he just... Radiates it. Like it’s nothin’.” Steve sounded like nothing Tony had ever heard from him. He sounded bitter.

 

“I dunno,” Bucky drawled. There was mischief in that voice and Tony could’ve kissed him for it. “You’ve definitely always radiated somethin’. Asthma, maybe. Pure unfiltered anger. Ten pounds of righteous bullshit in a two pound bag--”

 

“Shut up, I’m serious,” Steve said, but Tony could hear a little bit of laughter in his voice. “If I’m ever half as much of a hero as Tony Stark, I’ll have gotten _damn_ lucky.”

 

Tony’s jaw dropped.

 

“Now you’re just bein’ dramatic.”

 

“Maybe. C’mon. Your tea done yet?” There was a pause where Tony imagine Bucky nodding. “Good. There’s another animated film I wanna see. It’s a kid’s film--”

 

Bucky groaned. “Is this gonna be like when you dragged me to go see Bambi and insisted it’d be a light-hearted fun family film about a baby deer?”

 

Oh, that poor bastard. Bucky had apparently been getting sabotaged by tragedy even before the war.

 

“Well, it was--”

 

“I bawled my eyes out, Stevie.”

 

“Don’t worry!” Steve said quickly. “The cover of this one’s got a little old grandpa using a whole bunch of rainbow balloons to make his house float. And it’s got great ratings. I’m sure it’ll be fine.

 

Tony knew his cue when he heard it. Bucky was already shuffling towards the exit, which meant Steve was following, which meant that Tony could finally snag a refill in peace. Just had to make it look casual. Easy enough.

 

“ _Up_ is worse than _Bambi_ ,” he said, rounding the corner and waggling his empty coffee mug at Steve’s surprised face. “That movie that Cap’s talking about. _Up_. Way, way worse. I think even Coulson cried.”

 

Bucky whirled on Steve, face accusatory. Steve just raised his hands in mock surrender.

 

“The cover really does look cheerful!”

 

“The cover is lying,” Tony reiterated. “Sure, the rest of the movie’s cheerful and cute, but first it beats you up in a dark alley, steals your kidneys, and leaves you waking up in an ice bath.”

 

“Brutal,” Bucky deadpanned, still staring at Steve with a look on his face that was oddly calculating. His eyes flicked over to Tony, then back to Steve. Tony made the executive decision to ignore that. Which was apparently a mistake. Bucky made those sad hopeful eyes at Steve and Tony made a mental note to check up on how many of the Winter Soldier’s victims had just died of guilt. Bucky kept talking. “Oh, hey, would you grab a fresh second kettle, Steve? My hand is full. If it’s not too much trouble. It’ll just be easier than comin’ down here every time I--”

 

“Sure thing,” Steve said with a bright smile. He moved to the cabinet where the other kettle should have been and opened the door. The kettle was gone. Steve frowned at the empty space, but Bucky seemed unsurprised. His eyes stayed steadily on Steve.

 

Tony narrowed his eyes at Bucky as Steve started to dig through various cabinets.

 

“I’ll go on ahead,” Bucky said, as casually as could be. “I’m gonna rent _Wall-E_ instead, though. That one’s about robots, and everyone knows robots are cooler than balloons.”

 

Tony pressed his lips together in a thin line and conveniently forgot about any sad scenes in _Wall-E_ that could rival _Up_. He just didn’t have any time at all to warn Bucky before he left. What a shame.

 

Tony tried to ignore the way Steve stiffened from where he was crouched down and digging through drawers. He assumed that when accounting for the way Steve swore quietly under his breath, Steve just realized he’d been ambushed. Left alone in a kitchen with Tony Stark. Whom Steve apparently thought of as a hero. Tony barely held back a scoff.

 

“I’m just getting more coffee,” Tony assured him. “I’ll be gone in a moment, don’t worry.”

 

“I don’t want you gone, Tony,” Steve said quietly from where he was on the floor. He was still staring frustratedly into the middle distance in front of him like he was trying to work up the nerve for something.

 

Of course the coffee pot was mysteriously empty of the coffee Tony knew he’d brewed earlier. Luckily whoever had seen fit to dump out a perfectly good pot of coffee had also refilled the water tank, put in a fresh filter, and filled the device to the brim with freshly ground beans. How considerate. Tony scowled at it.

 

“Okay, change of plans,” Tony said. “I’ll be leaving now, since you’re not the only one that got ambushed.”

 

“Wait,” Steve spoke and Tony hesitated.

 

He shouldn’t have hesitated. He should have just left. Walked away before things could get worse. Tony knew that. He was supposed to be smart, damnit. But there he was, waiting just before the doorframe like a good little soldier following Captain’s orders.

 

“Ambush or no, Buck’s right. I do have some things I want to say to you,” Steve said. He stood up and faced Tony with that god-awful Captain America Is Disappointed In You look and Tony wanted to _die_.

 

“And what if I don’t want to hear it?” Tony parried as best he could. Steve flinched.

 

“That’s up to you,” Steve crossed his arms over his chest, but he stubbornly held eye contact. “Will you hear me out?”

 

Tony rolled his eyes and made a gesture for Steve to ‘go ahead.’

 

“I wanted to apologize. For hurting you.”

 

Steve had a real knack for making him immediately regret humouring conversations like this. Rhodey’s constant reminders that talks about feelings being important could shove it. If those baby-blues could get any bigger, Tony would eat his damn hat. Tony put on his best baffled look and gestured to himself. “Hurting me? I’m fine. See?”

 

“No, not recently. I meant…” Steve trailed off like he had a personal share of stock in dramatic pauses. Tony gritted his teeth and braced himself. “The accords. Siberia?”

 

“Oh, you mean when you refused to listen to any sort of moderation, broke our team in half, and then crushed my arc reactor. Well in that case…” Tony grinned in a way he hoped made the warning signals clear. It felt like he was baring his teeth more than he was smiling. He focused on the coffee maker again. The boiling black liquid had started to drip into the glass pot. The whole contraption was ancient. Barton must’ve snuck it in. “I’m still fine, Rogers.”

 

“I did what I had to do Tony.” Steve’s voice had reached that Fuck You, I’m Captain America pitch. The one that said he might as well have had his shield drawn. Tony swallowed back a barbed comment about how Steve’s army was showing and forced himself to focus on the coffee. Steve’s voice got marginally softer when he spoke again.

 

“I never wanted you to get hurt.”

 

Something in Tony’s chest snapped. He laughed. “Wow, so this isn’t an apology at all, is it? ‘Hey sorry that sucked for you, but I’d do it again.’”

 

“What? No, I--”

 

“Doesn’t matter,” Tony said, cutting off the stream of bullshit before it could really get the chance to flow. “I don’t care about all of that.”

 

Steve scoffed loudly. “Yes, you do. You’re clearly upset. Why would you lie about it? Do you--”

 

Coffee-maker be damned and so much for self control. Tony whirled around and jabbed a finger st Steve’s chest. “Oh that’s rich. I’m lying? Yeah, it must be real hard to trust me after all that, huh? I’m not upset about all that because I get it. I’m still just some asshole with a suit that shouldn’t have been anywhere near the Avengers anyway. But you lied, Rogers.”

 

“What?” Steve’s eyes somehow went wider and Tony guessed he’d better find a hat to eat.

 

In for a penny…

 

“I thought if I could trust anyone, then surely it would be Captain America. You stand for everything good and true, don’t you? Says so, right there on the spandex.”

 

Steve winced. “Tony, I--”

 

“But you’re no different.” Keeping his voice even was the hardest thing Tony had ever done. He clutched his mug in his fingers like it was the only thing protecting him.  “You lied about my mom. Hydra took her life and you swept her memory under the rug. Zemo didn’t do that. You did. Aren't you supposed to be better than that?”

 

Steve’s mouth fell open and he took a step back like Tony struck him. Tony ran a hand over the dents in his chest where the arc reactor had been. Where the bruises had been after Steve had smashed the shield into him. His lungs cramped up and he shouldered his way past Steve (frustrated that the shove hadn’t jostled Steve at all; likely would just give him another bruise to remember Captain America by), and nearly slammed directly into Bucky’s chest.

 

“Critical mission failure, Soldier,” Tony sneered.

 

“That was way out of line, Stark! Apologize.” And there was the good ol’ Captain. Back in action again to defend his buddy.

 

One look at Bucky’s face told Tony everything he needed to know about where Steve Rogers had learned to look exactly like a kicked puppy. One look told him that Steve still had some work to do to catch up because holy hell Bucky set a high bar. A low snarl dragged out of Tony’s chest as Bucky’s hurt expression slid from Tony’s face to where Steve was still standing stock still in the kitchen. He looked at Tony again briefly, then stepped around him to go comfort Steve.

 

Of course.

 

Tony levelled a cold look at Steve. “I never wanted you to get hurt.”

 

He made a strategic retreat to his lab before Steve’s shocked face could spew any more vitriol. He locked the doors behind him, and threw himself into his work on the arm. The sooner it was done, the sooner the Tower would be super-soldier free again.

 

* * *

 

It took thirty-eight hours, twenty-three minutes and forty-one seconds to finish the arm. That included all the organic material sensors, the off-switch for the neural links, and fully functioning articulation. The arm was a thing of art. Possibly Tony’s finest work. And all that was left was attaching it to the shoulder of one Bucky, who Tony had coincidentally not seen nor spoken to for thirty-eight hours, fifty-seven minutes and twelve seconds.

 

It had been a total blackout of communication since the incident in the kitchen. Bucky avoided all of the hidden camera ports like the professional he was, and had every bit of conversation with Steve in places where Tony wouldn’t be able to listen in. Not that Tony had really tried to track any such material down. It just spoke volumes to Barnes’ prior willingness to be recorded and heard.

 

He still wasn’t sure how much of that willingness was general apathy, and how much had been pointed manipulation to get Tony and Steve talking. Now, the only proof Tony had that Bucky was still even in the tower was Steve’s presence. Steve, who’d also been avoiding Tony since the kitchen incident, though with significantly lower success rates. The couple times they’d run into each other, Steve looked like Tony had just taken scissors to his favourite sweater. (Not a bad idea.)

 

That was why he was nervous, though. To see Bucky again, that is. It was installation day and there wasn’t really a way around it. They had to be in the same room, in relatively close proximity, for a procedure that could only be described as thoroughly invasive. It made sense to be nervous.

 

When he finally made his appearance, Bucky looked… not great, to put it kindly. The bags under his eyes were a couple hues darker than usual. He looked weary. Like he’d been dodging sleep as much as he’d been dodging all the monitoring devices in the tower. Tony bit back the urge to ask if he was okay. It was a dumb question, he already knew the answer, and Bucky probably didn’t want him prying anyway.

 

“Alright, Elsa,” Tony gestured to the dentist’s chair he’d repurposed for the procedure. “Let's get this over with.”

 

Bucky fixed that mournful gaze on him and Tony took painstaking lengths to ignore it. If he focused on it, he was just going to get mad. Bucky had no right to assume he could just corral Steve into a shitty apology and think it would work out. It wasn’t any of Bucky’s concern to begin with. And blasting everyone within a five mile radius with the world’s most pitiful pout wasn’t going to dislodge Tony from his hard earned high horse.

 

The limb itself was severed into two parts. The first part was just the dock. That was the most complicated part, and what required the most detailed work in installation. When that was successfully attached, Bucky would be able to attach, detach, adjust, and adjust the settings on his own arm. Tony passed Bucky the Super Soldier Sedative pills before he ran through the schematics of the arm. He pointed to each piece of Friday’s projected image like a 1960s school teacher using a chalkboard, even sketching out a few of the equations in the air alongside just to thoroughly prove that the design was sound. He looked over his shoulder to make sure Bucky was following occasionally, but he didn’t make a big deal out of it. Bucky stayed silent. He nodded occasionally. His eyes never left the schematic, though, so Tony supposed that was as good as he was going to get. The whole session was recorded anyway. Bucky would be getting a copy of that before he and Steve left.

 

Tony ignored the way his stomach clenched painfully.

 

Finally, when the thirty minute timer beeped indicating the peak effectiveness of the sedatives, Tony spun around in his chair and eyed his patient. “Ready?”

 

Bucky nodded stiffly and stared down at the floor.

 

It was disheartening to see that they were back to square one. Tony didn’t dwell on it.

 

He moved swiftly. He pulled on medical grade rubber gloves and snapped on his anti-static bracelets, then quickly got to work tugging off the silicone shoulder cover. The wires were still just as frayed and wild as they had been the first day Tony had gotten a look at them. There were still scorch marks where they were severed and Tony clenched his jaw, knowing that he’d put those scorches there.

 

He didn’t have time to wallow. He had to move fast. The sedative didn’t make the procedure painless, not by a long shot, but it was as good as they were going to get. Tony set up the process so that the neural link off-switch would be functioning as fast as possible. He clipped the wires down to where they were no longer frayed and started attaching fresh cording. Each new piece was colour coded and it looked like a mess of rainbow rope coming out of Bucky’s shoulder socket.

 

“Holding up alright?” Tony asked absently. Considering how much pain Bucky was in, he hadn’t even flinched.

 

Tony twisted another wire back into proper shape and sealed it to its counterpart with electrical tape. The circuit board responsible for shutting down the pain sensory data was hanging loose in his grip. He adjusted to attach the first piece of it, then realized Bucky hadn’t responded. He paused and looked at Bucky’s face.

 

It was pale, focused, and distant, vacant in the same way as it had been in the videos. Tony’s gut plummeted, but he forced himself to keep working. If this was another resurgence of the Soldier, he didn’t want to tip off the guy about recognizing the threat. Tony quickly catalogued where all the weapons in his lab were stored, then did what he did best. Tony talked.  

 

“First bit is almost done. Two minutes maybe until I can shut down the pain. Thought you promised me you were going to say ‘ouch’?” Tony tried for a teasing grin but it probably came out forced. He was focused on too many things at once. “I know you’re super tough, but I’m positive this can’t be painless.”

 

Bucky made a strange whining sound and his eyes fluttered shut. Tony’s hands faltered for just a moment. He quickly picked up the slack and attached the next piece.

 

“Friday, would you be a peach and monitor vitals for me?” Tony said as casually as he could.

 

“Sergeant Barnes’ vitals appear to be normal,” Friday said. But she sounded troubled. “However, his brain activity is consistent with that of an average panic attack.”

 

Tony froze.

 

“It’s fine,” Bucky croaked. “Ouch. Just keep going. _Please_.”

 

Tony abandoned the idea of talking and threw himself into the installation.Only a couple more wires left and--

 

“There.” Tony pressed the button that should shut off the pain sensors and watched Bucky anxiously.

 

Bucky slumped forward immediately with a choked groan, his forehead hitting Tony’s shoulder as his entire torso wobbled. Unfortunately, Tony did not have a dose of the serum in his system and was thus not equipped to handle all seventy tons of super soldier, so Bucky’s descent pulled them both to the lab floor with a _thud_.

 

“Sergeant Barnes’ heart rate is increasing outside of normal parameters. Sergeant Barnes’ breathing has grown faster than is considered healthy for an average adult--”

 

“Yep, got it,” Tony said. He dropped the pick he’d had in his hand and tried to wrap his around around Bucky to keep him relatively upright. “Friday, call Steve. Get him down here, now.”

 

Bucky made the whining sound again and curled in on himself, head pressed up against Tony’s stomach and his good hand fisted in the fabric of Tony’s shirt. His voice was barely recognizable between heaving sobs. “M’sorry. I’ll be okay, I promise, m’sorry--”

 

“Shh, hey it’s a panic attack, I get’em too,” Tony soothed as best he could. “This one’s on me. I should have known this was going to be a trigger. Getting your arm worked on, I mean.”

 

His hands hovered over Bucky’s form awkwardly, not sure if touch would be welcome or make it worse. Bucky was clinging to him so hard that Tony was leaning towards help, so he took a risk and smoothed over Bucky’s long hair. He brushed it back from Bucky’s face and saw that he still had his eyes screwed shut, eyebrows furrowed, and jaw clenching so hard Tony was worried about his teeth.

 

“It’s not…” Bucky took a great shuddering breath. “Not a trigger. Still me. Just… shitty.”

 

Tony snorted. “I didn’t mean trigger like the Soldier variety. Meant more in the normal human capacity for anxiety.”

 

Bucky wheezed, but there was a little more life to his tone. “This is normal?”

 

“‘Fraid so, Buckminster. Sorry to say, because I know how fond you are of being an outlier.” Tony teased gently, paired with running his fingers through Bucky’s hair. The sallow look to his skin was so obvious now that he was looking. Of course Bucky wasn’t still sulking about the kitchen. Tony was an idiot for not seeing it before and--

 

“Hey,” Bucky practically swallowed the word. “Just… Keep talkin’?”

 

Tony nodded, mind immediately blanking on what he was supposed to say. Steve would’ve had some speech on hand about how brave Bucky was, and how things were going to get better. How the world was good and that there was so much in it that Bucky deserved to see for himself. Maybe toss in a bit about Bucky’s progress, or some mushy piece about getting to enjoy the world they saved all the time.

 

All that was coming to mind though was, ‘stuff doesn’t suck all the time.’ And that wasn’t exactly helpful.

 

Bucky’s hand squeezed the fabric of his shirt and those blue eyes opened just a fraction to stare up at Tony pleadingly.

 

“I went through a long hair phase, y’know,” Tony blurted. “Was about as long as yours. Mine’s curly, though. I straightened it all the time. Mullets were still really in during the 70s and 80s--well, I don’t have to tell you, you were probably there. You remember, those huge collars and the jean jackets? I had it all.”

 

A small smile played at Bucky’s lips and Tony matched it.

 

“Hell, I had this pair of skinnies, right? Rhodey called them my disco pants. They were this weird silver metallic sheen. Made my ass look like it was made of mirrors.”

 

Bucky gave a weak laugh. “Yeah? Would’a paid to see that.”

 

“Well lucky for you, you don’t have to,” Tony informed him brightly. “I was never camera shy. And as a result, there are photos of those monstrosities all over the internet.”

 

“What happened to’em?” Bucky’s voice sounded a little stronger. “Your disco pants.”

 

Tony blinked and pretended to be confused. “What are you talking about? I still wear them all the time.”

 

Bucky snickered. “You do not.”

 

“I do too. Or at least homages to them.” Tony gestured to the Iron Man suit models at the periphery of the lab. “Now I prefer my metallic ass to be a little more red and gold.”

 

“So that’s why you made the arm, huh? Try’na relive your fashion model days through me.”

 

Bucky’s grin was more crooked than normal and a little forced, but it was good. Colour flushed back into his cheeks and his hand let go of Tony’s shirt. He adjusted himself until he was laying on the floor next to Tony, arm crossed over his chest like he was embarrassed at all the contact. But he still leaned into Tony’s hand when if followed his movement and scritched softly against his scalp, so Tony kept it up.

 

“Yep, you caught me. My ulterior motive at last revealed.” Tony smiled back breathlessly. “I never said I was a model, though. Just… abnormally visible in the media.”

 

“Sound like a model to me,” Bucky said with a sage nod of his head. “Bet you were pretty enough to be a model even without the whole heir-to-billions thing.”

 

“ _‘Were’_?” Tony gasped, and put his hand over his heart. “You’re cruel, Mr. Barnes.”

 

That got him a genuine smile. “Thought I told you to call me Bucky?”

 

Tony didn’t get the chance to reply that no, Bucky had in fact done no such thing. He had, instead, pretended to have forgotten his identity and nearly sent Tony to his grave with a heart attack when he pulled his ‘who the hell is Bucky’ stunt; that Tony had been waiting to hear permission explicitly given because he was polite, goddamnit.

 

Steve came barrelling in from the elevator before any of those words could actually leave Tony’s mouth, so Tony just drew his hand away from Bucky’s head and watched as Steve skidded to his knees and immediately started checking Bucky for injuries. Bucky lay still and stared up at Steve patiently, looking already so much more like himself.

 

“Are you hurt? Did something go wrong?” Steve asked. He shot a wary look at Tony that Bucky waved away.

 

“Just a panic attack, Stevie,” Bucky said. “M’fine. Better than fine. Tony disabled the pain sensors in the shoulder. Feel better than I have in years.”

 

Steve still hunched over him like a soon-to-be-widow over her husband’s death bed, concern painted plain on his features. It was a different kind of concern, though. Not the same vague alarm or general distaste that Steve emulated at bad tactical plans, or wounded civilians. There was a desperation to it. Like he thought he might actually lose Bucky to the panic attack.

 

Or like he still wasn’t convinced that he’d really gotten Bucky back at all.

 

Something in Tony’s brain clicked into place and he saw it. The fear in Steve’s hunched shoulders; the way he caved in on himself like he was two hundred pounds smaller than he actually was, the way he still tried to look up at Bucky even when he had a good two or three inches of height on him, and the way he looked at Tony now--like one of the many civilians they saw when they were out saving the world.

 

The look was unmistakable. Awe, fear, and gratitude. It was the look someone gave when they were reunited with a loved one. It was the look that made all the nonsense that came with hero-ing worth it. And it was aimed at Tony.

 

“Thank you,” Steve said, and his voice on just the wrong side of too intense enough to make Tony rush to break eye contact.

 

“It’s no big deal,” Tony shrugged. He pushed himself to his feet. “Just get him back to your suite. Make sure he’s got water and all that. You know the drill, I’m sure.”

 

Steve moved to scoop Bucky up, but Bucky squirmed away quickly enough that he managed to stagger to his feet on his own. Steve still slung his arm under Bucky’s shoulders and held him up as he swayed. Steve shot a questioning look at Tony.

 

“Super Serum Sedatives,” Tony said by way of explanation.

 

Steve gave a little ‘ah,’ nodded, and maneuvered them towards the elevator.

 

“He’s a good person, Stevie,” Bucky drawled, all lazy and soft, leaning into the support of his friend. “You’ve got good taste in friends.”

 

Steve snorted and pressed the elevator call button. He shot Tony a smile over his shoulder. “Yeah, he’s alright.”

 

Tony saw it again. The two kids from Brooklyn. The wicked edge to Steve’s teasing that was never present when he was supposed to be Captain America and the easy familiarity they had with each other. It was like seeing an entirely new person disappear behind those elevator doors.

 

Tony leaned against the closest desk, finally feeling the weight of his own exhaustion. He was going to sleep, he decided. Then he was going to talk to Steve. The real one, not the decoy.

 

* * *

 

Steve was in the kitchen, of all places, when Tony found him. He’d emptied out the contents of the cabinets and was carefully re-organizing everything, tossing away old empty boxes of snacks and clearing out more room for the stuff that never seemed to make it off the counter. Notably, the missing kettle was sitting at the edge of the breakfast bar, presumably waiting to be put away last.

 

Tony cleared his throat and Steve whipped around, wide-eyed, like Tony had walked in on him doing something nefarious instead of just cleaning the kitchen. Tony raised an eyebrow and gestured to the kettle.

 

“Where was it?”

 

Steve blinked at Tony’s hand, the kettle, then Tony. His eyes narrowed for a split second before widening in comprehension. “Oh. The microwave. He’d put it in the microwave. Because--”

 

“You can’t put metal in a microwave,” Tony smiled a bit. “I remember you learning that lesson the hard way.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Steve shrugged sheepishly. “Apparently word got around. Had to dissect the whole place before it even occurred to me to check there.”

 

“Brilliant.” Tony laughed.

 

Steve grinned. “Don’t encourage him.”

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Tony shot back easily and for a split second things were normal.

 

If Tony tried, he could pretend there wasn’t this massive rift between them and they were just passing by each other in the tower like they always did. Clint and Natasha could’ve been talking in hushed tones about some new soap they’d found, Bruce’s weird protein snacks might still be in the freezer, and they’d all get to wrap up the week with an attempt at an email from Thor, who seemed either incapable or unwilling to turn off capslock.

 

Instead they were here alone, in a mostly vacant tower. Their friends were scattered to all the corners of the earth and they couldn’t even seem to bridge the gap of ten paces between them.

 

“I hope you don’t mind. That I took everything apart to find the kettle, I mean. It was driving me up a wall,” Steve hastily added as he started to look more concerned. He hunched in on himself again when he dug for that reassuring Captain America voice. Tony’d never seen it before. “I’m going to put it all back! M’not gonna to just leave it all out in a mess like this.”

 

Tony nodded, looking at the piles and piles of stuff. He reached out and plucked the little orange box of baking soda off the counter. He smiled down at it.

 

“My dad entered me into my first science fair without telling me,” Tony said. He focused on the label full of instructions no one ever read. “It wasn’t supposed to be open to first graders, but Howard flashed his giant wallet and made sure I had a good booth and everything. He talked me through all sorts of theorems, made me practice my math, practice my speaking voice for hours until my throat was raw.

 

“But, miracle of all miracles, I convinced him to let me build my project by myself. It was my big secret. My time without him hovering over my shoulder. He talked a big game to everyone about it. You’d have thought he was betting on horses, not talking about his kid.”

 

Steve’s eyes felt heavy on Tony. He swallowed and forced himself to continue.

 

“In the end, I was still just a kid. I made a paper mache volcano like everyone else so that I’d have more time to play.” Tony dusted off the top of the box and set it back down. A slow grin crept across his face. “Of course instead of baking soda and vinegar, I used thermite.”

 

Steve laughed and Tony finally dared to look up.

 

“What?” Tony’s grin got wider. “I thought it would be a better approximation of lava. _Way_ more realistic.”

 

“I think you’d rather die than give up your showmanship, Tony,” Steve was still using his Captain America Disapproves voice, but the twinkle in his eye hadn’t left. Tony wondered how many times he’d missed that before. “So you won, I take it?”

 

“Oh, god no,” Tony said hurriedly. “Disqualified and threatened with expulsion. Something about unsafe lab practice and lack of protective eye-wear. Very serious violations, but in my defense, I was _five_.”

 

Steve snickered again, all pretenses dropped for the time being. “That’s an incredible story. Very you.”

 

Tony stared at the box of baking soda again, smile fading.

 

“Howard didn’t think so,” Tony said with a shrug. “Said that it was foolish. Reckless. And… Oh, how’d he phrase it? Tasteless to make a mockery of the other kids’ paper mache volcanoes. That if I couldn’t win with dignity and grace, that I didn’t deserve to win at all.”

 

Tony tapped his fingers on the counter lightly.

 

“He actually argued with the school board for them to expel me. Wanted me to learn my lesson, or whatever. They wouldn’t do it, mind you, since that would mean losing their highest paying donor. Money talks, y’know? But I still got to sit through that meeting where he talked about how never in his life had he ever met someone so blah, blah, you got the gist.”

 

“Christ. That’s horrible.” Steve’s voice was quiet. Tony could see his eyebrows were tilted up in that approximation of a kicked puppy look. It wasn’t nearly so bad now that Tony had seen the source of it coming from Bucky. Steve only looked moderately pitiful. “You were only _five_.”

 

Tony nodded. “Which, I’ve been told, is way too young to go on a drug and sex bender, so. I settled for doing things the old fashioned way and just cried myself to sleep. Lacking in creativity, I know, but--”

 

“No. You shouldn’t have had to go through that,” Steve shook his head. “No kid deserves to be treated like that. The Howard I knew--”

 

“--was not the one that I knew,” Tony shrugged. “Took me a while to come to terms with that, since he talked about how great you were all the time. Captain Rogers this, good ol’ Steve that.”

 

Steve looked horrified. “You thought I would be like that?”

 

Tony snorted.

 

“No. I didn’t know what you were going to be like, because I never expected to meet you. As far as I was aware, you were dead and gone before I was even conceived. I never bothered worrying about that situation and then one day, _bam_ , you show up clad in star spangled spandex. I had no idea what to make of you.” Tony laughed at the memory.

 

Steve groaned and dragged a hand down his face. “I’m never going to live down the spandex.”

 

Tony grinned at him. “Never.”

 

Steve gave a weak smile in response, gestured for Tony to go on, and he momentary reprieve was over then. He took a deep breath and let it out slow.

 

“When I woke up, my mom was there.” As soon as Tony spoke, the air in the room got thicker. Heavier. He didn’t dare look at Steve. “She had snuck one of the consolation prize medals away from the judges’ booth while my dad and I were in the school board’s office. She used some sandpaper to scrub away the text, then carved in ‘World’s Best Son’ with a pen-knife. She put it around my neck and--”

 

Tony stopped as it got harder to speak. The memory was still so vivid. It shouldn’t have been. It was decades ago. But it was like every memory had increased in intensity, preserved in resin since the night she died. A perfect scrapbook full of images he couldn’t touch. Tony squeezed his eyes shut and took another deep breath.

 

“And?” Steve prompted softly.

 

Tony tried to smile. He opened his eyes and looked at the baking soda box, where it was safe. “And she said she loved all the air brushed details on the paper mache mountain. That it was a shame it had all melted, but that she loved me more.”

 

Steve shifted his weight back and forth, looking for all the world like he wanted to drag Tony into one of those obnoxious bear hugs, so Tony pointedly avoided eye contact.

 

“What I’m getting at,” Tony said slowly, making sure his voice wouldn’t betray him. “What I’m trying to say is that if someone told me I could have her back tomorrow if I burned the world and everything in it? I’d… I’d consider it. For way longer than is probably appropriate. And I wouldn’t have Hydra brainwashing to blame for that.”

 

Steve opened his mouth to speak but Tony held up his hand. Steve quieted.

 

“I get it now.” Tony glanced over at Steve and fuck, yep, there were those puppy eyes. Did that feature come with the serum? “I lost her. She’s not coming back. But Bucky… He came back. You got a second chance to keep him safe. That’s something you were right to protect.” Time for the big finish. Tony took in another shaky breath. “I’m sorry.”

 

They stood there like that, Tony’s hand tapping away the fibonacci sequence on the countertop to try and bring himself back from the edge and Steve looking like he wanted to duck and hide behind his shield more than anything else in the world.

 

“I’m so sorry, Tony,” Steve’s voice was thick. Tony refused to look away from the box of baking soda. “I shouldn’t have kept that from you. She deserved better than that. You deserve better than that. I should have told you. I’m sorry.”

 

There. Now they’d both said it, and it was done. “It’s fine, Rogers. Water under the bridge.”

 

“No, it’s not fine,” Steve insisted and apparently they weren’t done. Tony glanced at his watch and wondered if anyone would blame him for calling the suit to him so that he could heave himself out of the window. He’d already done the thing. He’d met his quota. But there was Steve, stubbornly still talking. “You were right. I’m supposed know better, no, to be better than that, and I failed. I will be better in the future. From now on. Not that you gotta forgive me, christ I don’t know if I would--”

 

“Steve.”

 

Steve fell silent.

 

Tony tried to quirk his mouth into a smile but it just wasn’t working. He felt miserable and Steve looked like he was ready to combust.

 

“How about we just hug it out and call it even?”

 

The words were barely out of his mouth before Steve flew across the kitchen and pulled Tony into a rib-crushing hug that would’ve made Thor proud. There was nothing gentle or soothing about it, like Bucky’s hug from the elevator footage. There was none of the sweet affection like hugs from Pepper. None of the camaraderie like Rhodey. It was fierce and intense. Possessive. Tony let himself melt into it.

 

When he opened his eyes, he saw Bucky lurking around the corner hallway. He’d been smiling at them both, the expression soft on him in a way that Tony hadn’t seen from him before. Not that he got long to catalogue it. As soon as they made eye contact, Bucky demonstrated exactly why he’d been referred to as a ghost story and disappeared so fast, Tony almost doubted he’d seen Bucky at all.

 

He patted Steve’s back and finally stepped away, horrified to see that Steve was an ugly crier.

 

“I may have ruined your jacket,” Steve snuffled. It was absolutely pathetic.

 

Tony bust out laughing and Steve joined in a few tissues and reassurances that Tony wasn’t making fun of him later.

 

______________________

 

The arm installed like a dream. Steve stayed with them both through the whole process and only gave Tony’s jokes, like, two disapproving looks. Which had to be a record, really. But the jokes seemed to keep Bucky grounded, so Tony even got treated to Steve joining in on the fun. Hearing the way they brought out each other’s Brooklyn accents was weird enough without hearing the absolutely filthy jokes they’d stolen away from their army days. Tony was scarred for life.

 

“I’m going to get us some lunch. M’thinkin’ hot dogs,” Steve said as he stood up. He grinned down at Bucky.

 

Bucky’s eyes widened hopefully. “Is Vino’s stand still around?”

 

“Vino was around in the 40’s?” Tony piped up. “I think that guy might actually be immortal. We should look into that.”

 

“Good,” Bucky said solemnly. “We don’t deserve him.”

 

“Agreed.” Steve nodded. “I already know Buck’s order. What do you want, Tony?”

 

Tony thought for a minute. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d picked up a street vendor hot dog. It usually involved too much paparazzi dodging to make the outing worth it. He shrugged at Steve. “Surprise me?”

 

Steve snorted. “I’ll try. I think that’s more your area of expertise.”

 

“Why don’tcha try jumpin’ out of a plane with no chute?” Bucky said so nonchalantly that Tony almost missed what he said entirely. Steve froze to the spot, back stiff. Tony looked between the two of them with growing delight. Bucky eyes were locked on his target and unwavering. “That sure _surprised_ me.”

 

Tony unsuccessfully tried to stifle a laugh as Steve started walking with a purpose towards the elevator. Bucky kept heckling (something about a grenade drill?) him as Steve tried to promise that he’d bring back more and more confectionaries until the doors finally granted him reprieve from Bucky’s tireless onslaught. By then, Tony was laughing so hard he could feel tears stinging his eyes.

 

Bucky turned and grinned at Tony and _wow_. If _that_ didn’t quell the laughter and replace it with butterflies.

 

Tony coughed and turned to focus on his monitor instead. “Like I was saying, the external plating is coated in a thin layer of vibranium, courtesy of your friends in Wakanda.”

 

The arm flexed and whirred as Bucky tap-tap-tapped his fingers oh so gently against the wooden desktop. The whole limb was shining and glossy in the way that only new tech could be. Tony exerted every ounce of willpower he’d ever collected to not coo and oggle it. Because that would be dangerous. Since the very beautiful arm was attached to the very beautiful Bucky.

 

Tony and Steve might’ve been back on good terms, but Tony still knew a bad idea when it batted its eyelashes at him. He wasn’t _that_ much of an idiot.

 

“Thank you,” Bucky said in that deep rumbly voice that Tony just knew was paired with what Tony was going to start calling the Hopeful Orphan In A Charles Dickens Novel face. Tony stubbornly kept his eyes glued to the screen. “For everything. For the arm, for your hospitality--”

 

“Hold on,” Tony held up his hand and Bucky cut off abruptly. “I’m not done yet. There’s still a lot of calibrations to be done on that beautiful arm of yours.”

 

Bucky’s grin was slow and crooked and Tony made the mistake of looking directly at it. “Yeah?”

 

“Mmhm,” Tony dragged his eyes away from Bucky’s lips and focused on his eyes. That… wasn’t much better. “It can be done remotely, of course. If you’re itching to get out of New York, I understand. I can have--”

 

“Tony.”

 

“Alright, alright,” Tony conceded, hands up in defeat. “Just making sure.”

 

Bucky stared at his hand in obvious happiness. “So, calibrations, huh? What’d you have in mind?”

 

“Well, it’ll require you learning to control the pressure, sensitivity, and mastering the finer points of dexterity with it, so…”

 

Tony badly wished he hadn’t shut off the session recording just so that he could’ve immortalized the look on Bucky’s face when he pulled a light blue plastic ukulele from the bottom drawer of his desk and passed it over. Bucky’s eyes were wide like saucers. He took the instrument delicately, as if it wasn’t a $20 discount piece Tony had found in the depths of Amazon.

 

Tony grinned at him. “Know any good songs?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last the ukulele makes an appearance. Get ready for fluff, fuckers. 
> 
> I wanna say a quick thanks to Ivo, Kam, Lefty, Dreamy, and Arrow who all helped me a _ton_ this chapter when it came to corralling Steve and Tony into an actually satisfying reconciliation. I have a brand new deeply profound respect for Stony writers. That shit was like herding cats, you guys.
> 
> Oh, and also. 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> You're welcome.
> 
> \------
> 
> Hey guys, friendly reminder to not character bash in the comments. Specifically Steve. This is a Steve Friendly story. And the author doesn't appreciate getting comments with Steve hate in her inbox. Save that shit for elsewhere.


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

“ _Psst_. Hey, Tony,” Bucky whispered conspiratorially as if there was a risk of anyone else hearing them in Tony’s lab. Where they were. _Alone_.

 

“What is it, Red Scare?” Tony asked at a normal volume because he wasn’t going to play spy games with someone that could give Nat a run for her money.

 

“ _Psst._ ” Bucky hissed more insistently.

 

Tony looked up from the boot he was working on and saw that the ukulele hung loose in Bucky’s grip. He wasn’t focused on learning chord structures anymore. Instead his eyes were locked on the digital numbers blinking out by elevator, indicating that someone was on their way down to the lab. Likely Steve.

 

Ah, that’s why they were whispering.

 

Tony shrugged as if to say, ‘ _so what?_ ’

 

Bucky grinned at him and mouthed, ‘ _watch this._ ’

 

He pulled the instrument back into his lap smoothly and tried to do another few rounds of scales. His face was the very image of focus. He didn’t even flinch when the doors slid open. Steve’s smiling face appeared seconds later. He had four boxes of take-out in held in a straining plastic bag. The logo for the Chinese restaurant stretched lopsided on the front and wiggled as Steve approached.

 

“Chicken lo mein, stir fry, and two pounds of char siu as per your request,” Steve said, proud as if he’d made the food himself.

 

“Nice,” Bucky said absently. He held up his metal hand for a high five.

 

Tony’s eyes widened. Surely not.

 

Steve smacked it almost instantly and the metallic clang was almost as jarring as the way Steve’s face blanched when he realized his error. He staggered back, take out boxes falling to the floor in a comical array, and his face screwed up in like he thought that if he controlled his reaction well enough, he might be able to hide the fact that he just tried to high five reinforced vibranium.

 

“Oh my god,” Tony said and that broke the spell.

 

Bucky burst out laughing as Steve cussed up a storm. Captain America was anything but dignified as he launched himself at Bucky. Bucky barely had time to put the ukulele somewhere where it wouldn’t get crushed under wrestling super soldiers, but he still did it. Managed to treat the instrument lovingly before matching Steve’s shit-talk with his own heckling in the same fluid movement.

 

“Oh my god,” Tony said again, prompting a whole new peal of laughter from Bucky (who was currently pinned to the floor) and more outraged ranting from Steve.

 

But Tony’s shock that the famous tactician Steve Rogers had honest to god tried to high-five the Bucky’s metal hand had faded. He was more focused on that bit where the two tussling idiots in his lab had let him, Tony Stark, into their private lives where they weren’t the Captain and the Soldier. The Bucky currently biting Steve’s wrist (while lecturing him about fighting technique with a truly disturbing amount of smugness) was the same guy Tony had first seen in the elevator. And the Steve that snarled out that Bucky had never fought fair a day in his goddamn life was a Steve Rogers that no one outside the room was privy to at all.

 

Tony smiled at them. He was perfectly content to sit as witness to these two, who had gone through so much and--

 

Steve’s hand wrapped around his ankle and Tony was yanked from his chair to play the part of a human shield.

 

Bucky looked deeply offended. “That’s cheating.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Steve puffed. “Worked, didn’t it?

 

Sure enough, Bucky was frozen to the spot. He stared at Tony in that weird calculating way that no longer made Tony worried about an errant trigger, but instead had him absolutely convinced that if he didn’t properly and quickly demonstrate that he was currently on the correct side (read: Not Steve’s Side), that he could expect salt in his coffee at least twice over the next couple days.

 

Tony shrugged and grinned at Bucky. “Get wrecked, scrub.”

 

Bucky’s jaw dropped and Steve practically cackled in delight.

 

* * *

 

There are some things in life that are meant to catch you by surprise. Tony knew that. He’d spent _most of his life_ being caught by surprise. He liked to think that there wasn’t much left out there that could actually shake him, but Pepper and Rhodey kept giving him the ‘really, Tony?’ look whenever he voiced that out loud so he kept that particular pride to himself.

 

Which was probably a good thing. Because there was nothing in his life that could have ever prepared him for the former Winter Soldier, greatest asset of Hydra and general scourge to the superhero and intelligence communities alike, curled up in the corner of Tony’s lab and watching video after video of tutorials on how to correctly play bar chords.

 

It was impossible, Tony decided, to reconcile Bucky Barnes with his CV. Not when he grumbled encouraging nothings to the ukulele itself (‘cmon pal, stay in tune for just a little longer’ or ‘i know you hit that note before, so do it just one more time?’) and treated the damn thing like he was afraid he’d shatter it. He practically cooed at it when he was trying to get the tuning just right, or adjusted the key to stretch a little tighter than the factory design.

 

The ukulele acted like a bookend to their routine.

 

Every day Bucky showed up at ten in the morning. He always had two mugs and a plate of food for Tony. He set one of the mugs (the one filled with hot coffee) on Tony’s largest deskspace (regardless of where Tony was actually working) and sat the plate down next to it. He always folded the paper napkin into a triangle and stuffed it under the right side of the plate. The silverware, if required, would be hidden in the fold of the napkin without fail. And the meal was always balanced. Almost absurdly so. Tony had once made an incredulous remark about eating bok choy for breakfast but Bucky had quickly retorted that it probably no longer counted as breakfast if the consumer hadn’t slept.

 

Whether Tony grumbled about the fussing or just caved in and ate whatever it was Bucky had brought didn’t matter. Bucky had his hands on the ukulele by 10:15 sharp. He always spent a minute or so meticulously tuning it, something Tony had learned to tune out. But then he moved on to whatever he was learning.

 

He started out with scales. Basic stuff that Bucky had pulled from YouTube tutorials. And it was rough at first. He didn’t seem to want to exert any pressure with his metal hand which made the notes strained and off key no matter how well he tuned the damn thing. Tony got fed up with it after about (a very generous) half hour, and walked over to glare at him. Bucky immediately dawned the Orphan In A Charles Dickens Novel look (Tony was pretty sure it was his knee-jerk reaction when faced with the possibility of being in trouble) and his hands stilled across the strings.

 

Tony held up one finger. Bucky looked at it, then at Tony. Confusion passed over those stormy features that quickly turned to suspicion. Tony ignored it. He slowly lowered the finger until he was pressing his fingertip onto one of Bucky’s own metal fingers, and insistently held down the string that Bucky had been all but caressing.

 

“Try it now,” Tony said in a deadpan voice.

 

Bucky blinked at him. Tony nodded at the ukulele. Bucky’s eyes widened a fraction, then he carefully strummed with his other hand. Sure enough, the notes rang out crystal clear and strong.

 

“You need to apply more force.” Tony moved his hand away and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s okay if you break it. I didn’t buy you a nice ukulele specifically because I wanted to make it clear that damage was an inevitable part of this process.”

 

“It’s not inevitable,” Bucky groused, but he was applying more pressure and the notes sounded less strained so Tony could feel his migraine receding.

 

“Okay, not inevitable, but,” Tony shrugged. “If the point was to make you that careful, I would’ve gotten something that would put the New York Orchestra to shame.” He paused. “I still could. Not like I couldn’t afford it if you accidentally fisted a $2,000 ukulele. Do you want a $2,000 ukulele?”

 

Bucky paled. “Christ, no. I’m good. Thanks.”

 

Tony shrugged again. “Your loss.”

 

Tony turned around to go back to his project. He’d taken all of two steps before Bucky’s voice stopped him.

 

“No loss, actually,” Bucky said so primly that Tony knew it was a trap. It was too similar to that too-casual voice Steve used when he thought he was sneakily setting you up for a one-liner he’d probably practiced in the mirror. It was absolutely, without any doubt, a trap. Bucky strummed a few notes. He was, for all appearances, content to go back to practice as if he hadn’t just thrown a big old bucket of bait into the center of the room with Tony’s name on it.

 

Tony sighed. He turned around again and looked at Bucky expectantly. “Oh?”

 

Bucky looked up at him. “Hm?”

 

“Oh come on.” Tony put a hand on his hip and gestured vaguely with the other one. “‘No loss, actually.’ You’re just going to let that dangle?”

 

“Ah.” Bucky nodded. “Just meant that if the ukulele in my hands doesn’t get totalled, replaced, or otherwise interfered with, then there’s technically no loss. Right?”

 

Tony’s eyebrows furrowed. “Are you referencing the ukuelele as if it’s a potential civillian casualty?”

 

“Yep.”

 

Tony guffawed. “Are you serious?”

 

Bucky looked at him with a butter-wouldn’t-melt expression. “Completely.”

 

“I’m not going to get offended if you scratch up the damn ukulele, Terminator.” Tony rolled his eyes.

 

“That’s good to hear,” Bucky said slowly, “but that’s ain’t my primary concern.”

 

“And what would that be?”

 

Bucky’s chin jutted out stubbornly and his hands stilled across the strings of the instrument. “You told me not to give you anythin’ in common with Hydra, and I mean to make good on that promise. They used to test my skills and programming in situations where  loss was inevitable. Encouraged, even.”

 

Shock froze Tony’s system. He wanted to say that that wasn’t what he meant, that he was concerned more about Bucky’s comfort, that he didn’t want to put more pressure on the shoulders of the same guy who’d only recently remembered his own name. For fucks sake, Tony was trying to be nice.

 

Bucky smiled softly. “Don’t look like that.”

 

“I don’t look like anything.”

 

“Sure you don’t.” Bucky’s grin was teasing. “Part of it is makin’ sure you got nothin’ in common with Hydra. But is it so hard to believe I wanna do somethin’ the right way? Ain’t had much chance to take things slow. I wanna learn this without damaging anything in the process cuz I wanna know if I can. Is that so bad?”

 

Tony gaped. He snapped his jaw shut and frowned. Bucky blinked up at him innocently and Tony scoffed. “Regular ray of sunshine, you are. Just a delight. Would it kill you to stop being grim for like, thirty seconds? Is that the secret weakness to the off-brand serum?”

 

Bucky’s grin broadened. “Plus, now that you made a thing outta it, I’ve definitely gotta do it my way.” He strummed another slightly off key chord and Tony’s eyes rolled so hard they nearly fell out of his head.

 

To give credit where credit’s due, it didn’t take Bucky long to adjust his pressure accordingly. Just one more afternoon’s practice, then Bucky was able to run scales all but seamlessly. He practiced again the next day, and the next, until scales were downgraded to being just a segment of his warm up.

 

The thing was, Tony should’ve kicked him out of the lab. He should’ve told him to go practice anywhere on his own floor, to go bother Steve with questions that might’ve been rhetorical about the tuning, or grumble aloud somewhere where he wouldn’t expect Tony to snark back. The scales and the note testing should have annoyed him to tears. Sometimes it nearly did.

 

But every time it got close to making his blood boil, Tony would turn to look at Bucky and it would fade away like sugar dissolving into boiling water. Liquid heat injected under the surface of his skin every time he watched the way Bucky’s eyelashes lowered in concentration, and he lost entire streams of thoughts to the way Bucky’s mouth curved around muttered nothings. He’d lost hours on projects due to the split in his concentration from the instrumental fumblings but he’d lost _days_ to staring at the way long dark hair framed Bucky’s face.

 

So, despite Tony’s better judgment, Bucky still showed up every day at 10:00AM sharp with a mug of tea for himself, and a plate of food with a mug of hot coffee for Tony. By 10:15 he was onto scales until he finished those at 10:30. Then he moved on to simple songs, or improvised strumming for a couple hours. He’d wander away for lunch and bring back something home cooked for Tony. They’d eat and chat about whatever it was Tony was working on until Bucky retreated to the couch to practice more. Scales, chords, plucking, and strumming. Like clockwork, until around 8:00PM, when he used a soft cloth to wipe down the instrument before placing it on the shelf Tony had cleared for him. A whole shelf that was just for Bucky’s ukulele. An honour Tony hadn’t even bestowed upon Rhodey.

 

And every night, Bucky would give that same half-wave thing from where he stood sheepishly in the elevator, waiting for the doors to close. Every night he’d say, “g’night, Tony” in the softest voice, like he was afraid suddenly that he was overstaying his welcome. It was like actually watching the metaphorical hammer driving the metaphorical nail into Tony’s metaphorical coffin. He managed to avoid falling into a wholly different kind of trap for just over a week, until one night.

 

“Dunno how you do it,” Bucky said, shaking his head after Tony explained the latest bout of complaints from the board of directors. “I’d have fled the country by now.”

 

“Is that your solution for everything?” Tony prodded Bucky’s side.

 

Bucky squirmed and swatted at his hand. “Yeah, well. It usually works.”

 

Tony snickered. “Steve’s gonna find out you ate his bagels one of these days and leaving the country isn’t going to save you.”

 

Bucky laughed. “Think I’ll have to fight him?”

 

“I think you won’t even see him coming.” Tony sat back in his chair and propped his feet up on Bucky’s lap. Bucky draped his arms over them and that was just another part of their routine. “I think he’s going to have to come up with a whole new training regiment to pull it off, but if anyone’s stubborn enough--”

 

“Yeah, it’d be Stevie.” Bucky tilted his head back and groaned. “He’s already got this one move, y’know? This weird thing where he just kinda leaps at’cha. It’s such a bad idea that it never even _occurs_ to me to prepare for it.”

 

Tony sat up straighter and peered at Bucky curiously. “You mean that move he used to turn the tides in the helicarrier? Y’know, I wondered where the hell he learned that. Or why it worked. You looked so _baffled_.”

 

Bucky stilled. Tony realized seconds too late.

 

“Shit.” Tony cringed and ran a hand over his face. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to unearth bad memories. Bad memories sounds too trivial. Nightmares that were briefly reality? I’m not trying to trivialize this, honest--”

 

“There’s video of that fight?” Bucky’s voice was quiet and his eyes were still focused on the ceiling.

 

Tony followed the line of Bucky’s throat as he swallowed and reminded himself in the surround-sound-shame-stadium of his own mind exactly why distractions were bad. Distractions in the shape of Bucky Barnes were bad. This was Untouchable with a capital U. He didn’t get to indulge in flirty nonsense with Bucky. That was off limits. He tried to wiggle his feet out from under Bucky’s arms, but Bucky squeezed once to keep him still.

 

When he spoke, Tony spoke carefully. “There is.”

 

Bucky nodded slowly. His eyes slid over to Tony, expression unreadable. “And you watched it?”

 

Tony nodded quickly. “Yeah. I did.”

 

“How recently?” Bucky asked.

 

Tony shook his head. “Not very. A while ago.”

 

“Before or after Siberia?” The words were calm, but they hit the ground like sinking stones and Tony felt his gut fall with them.

 

“After,” he forced out. Might as well come clean, Tony figured. Better to have Bucky shut the door on their weird friendship now, rather than wait around for his own heart to get shattered. Like inevitable loss. Tony ran his tongue over his lower lip and looked away from Bucky’s face. “Watched every video of you I could find. I was trying to study the arm. How it worked in action seemed like the best option. So I watched the video of the helicarrier fight. Compared it with footage from the airport fight. And the bunker in Siberia. And…”

 

He floundered. The final metaphorical nail in his metaphorical coffin.

 

“And the night I killed Howard and Maria,” Bucky finished for him. His voice sounded thick. Tony tried to move his feet again, but again Bucky just gave a gentle squeeze and Tony didn’t know what the hell that was supposed to mean. Bucky spoke again. “Is that all?”

 

Tony nodded. He stared pointedly at the floor of his lab and chewed on the inside of his cheek.

 

Bucky’s metal palm pressed gently at the side of his ankle and slid Tony’s legs off Bucky’s lap. Which was somehow infinitely worse, even if it did give him the freedom to curl up in his chair like a spooked hermit crab. He could feel his heart in his throat, pounding away furiously. His brain, ever helpful thing that it was, conjured up images of Bucky laughing, of Bucky smiling, of Bucky not looking like he’d just been betrayed.

 

“Hey,” Bucky’s voice was closer now and Tony looked up from the floor to see that Bucky was standing, nervously switching his weight from side to side, but that he hadn’t moved any closer or any further. “You’re tellin’ me that you watched all that and you still invited me here?”

 

Tony blinked. He stared up at Bucky and Bucky watched him with wide eyes, jaw tensed with nerves, his right arm holding his left like he wanted to minimize any risk it posed, or somehow make himself smaller.

 

“‘Course I did,” Tony tried for a confident smile. “Wanted to know the worst case scenario.”

 

Bucky let out a short breath in a huff. “Yeah, that’d be the worst case alright.” He nodded slowly. Then he stared at Tony with something akin to awe that made Tony flinch. “You watched all that and you were still kind to me. You don’t gotta humor me, y’know? S’alright if you can’t stomach it after seein’ all that--”

 

“I’m not humoring you,” Tony blurted out. Bucky froze mid-word. He looked like a rabbit ready to bolt for cover or play dead, or something. There was a twitchy quality to that kind of stillness and it broke Tony’s heart. “You can ask Steve if you don’t believe me, but I’m not humoring you. I don’t humor people. Even when I probably should.”

 

Bucky’s expression didn’t change for what felt like hours, and they just stared at each other. Finally, Bucky nodded again. He took a hesitant step towards Tony, watching him carefully like he was waiting for an objection. Tony refused to give him one. Bucky got closer still and ran his right hand along the side of Tony’s head and tipped it towards himself. He leaned forward and planted the gentlest of kisses at the crown of Tony’s head then stepped away.

 

“Thank you,” Bucky’s voice was rough. He cleared his throat and started his nightly ritual of wiping down the ukulele.

 

“For what?” Tony couldn’t stop himself. Granted, it took him a full five minutes to find his voice and by the time he did, Bucky was already walking towards the elevator. “I invaded your privacy. Watched videos of your worst memories and--”

 

“You saw me at my worst,” Bucky said as if it was simple, “and you’re still kind to me.”

 

“Well,” Tony faltered. “ _Yeah_. You’re a good guy.”

“Because you watched that, hearin’ you say that means even more than it already did. And it already meant a lot.” Bucky smiled. “S’kinda a relief, y’know? I keep waitin’ for everyone to wise-up. Realize who I am; what I did. But you already know. And you still...”

 

He trailed off and gestured to the ukulele, where it sat proudly on its shelf.

 

Bucky gave Tony another smile and, for once, it was one that wasn’t tinted with sadness. “G’night Tony. And thank you.”

 

Instead of looking away and waving like he always did, Tony found himself responding. “You’re welcome, Bucky. Good night.”

 

Bucky’s smile widened and he gave his customary half-wave with the metal hand. Tony returned the smile and wave both.

 

Tony was well and truly _fucked_.

 

* * *

 

After that, the routine quickly shattered and fled with the remainder of Bucky’s caution around Tony. Bucky cropped up in the lab just as often, if not more often, than Tony himself. He could be found strumming and plucking away in his corner at odd hours of the night, his face lost in concentration. The light blue plastic stood effervescent against the dimness of basement level rooms that couldn’t be cured with artificial lighting.

 

Bucky barely even looked up from the instrument when Tony walked in on him sitting in the lab, completely gone to the gentle notes that filled the room with something rich and thick like good conversation without the pressure. It was warm somehow, like a flicker of life even when the lab was otherwise still. Bucky’s movements belonged to the instrument itself, the coaxing of a snake charmer and his muse, he pulled music out of thin air like he hadn’t only had the thing for a couple weeks.

 

But despite Bucky’s newfound sporadic schedule, he still carefully minded Tony’s eating and sleeping habits. Or, lack thereof, really. Bucky no longer brought just breakfast. No, he’d taken to bringing food along with him every single time he returned to the lab from the outside world.

 

Tony guessed someone must’ve told Bucky about the wide and varied options of modern food since the meals stopped being even remotely recognizable as Bucky tried to catch up on a little under one hundred years of international cuisine.

 

Which was why Tony was stuck where he was, watching in horror as Bucky poured soy sauce over what was supposed to be a dead squid. But as soon as the sauce hit, it’s little tentacles flailed up and wiggled. Tony covered his mouth with his free hand (the other still wrapped around a still on soldering iron) to try and hide at least a little bit of the horrified expression he had no hope of keeping off his face.

 

“The soy sauce is warm and the sodium chloride triggers muscular contractions when the suckers absorb it, since the squid hasn’t completely hit rigor mortis. Its skin acts as a conductor to nervous responses even without signals from its brain,” Bucky explained happily. “Like your circuit boards. Saw it on Food Network.”

 

Food Network. That explained the weird food ventures.

 

“You saw a re-animated dead squid and thought of me?” Tony said dryly. He feigned an exaggerated gag. “How sweet.”

 

Bucky grinned sheepishly. “It was more flattering in my head.”

 

“Was it?” Tony squinted. “Besides, if you were trying to shock me with science you’re going to have to do better than that.”

 

Bucky’s grin grew playful. “There’s also some subtle commentary in there about how goin’ days without sleep can put you in the same quality of life category as a reanimated squid.”

 

Tony’s jaw dropped and his hands stuttered to a halt over his project. He swivelled in his chair to affix Bucky with his most offended look. Bucky’s ukulele was already in his lap. He tried and failed to hide a snicker at Tony’s look. “Don’t look at me like that, Sparks. M’worried ‘bout you. You need to sleep more.”

 

“You’re in here with me and it’s 4:00AM.” Tony wagged a finger at Bucky’s face. Bucky moved to bite it. Tony yanked his hand back. He gestured between himself and Bucky. “Pot, kettle.”

 

“Still.”

 

“Still nothing.” Tony turned back to his work. He dropped the iron in its coiled stand and shifted the circuit board in front of him so he could get a different angle. “Besides, I need to get this part done. You’re learning faster than I expected. It’s messing up my whole timeline.”

 

He could practically hear Bucky’s eyes narrow on him. “Thanks… I think.”

 

“Humble compliments from your friendly neighborhood _dead squid_.”

 

Bucky snorted. “You’re not gonna let that one go, huh?”

 

“Hey, if the joke ever gets old, we can always just go grab some soy sauce and--”

 

Bucky laughed. “Would I be making it better if I said you’re the cutest dead squid I’d ever seen?”

 

More flirting. It was like no one had told Bucky about what a horrifically bad idea it was to hang around Tony, never mind get his hopes up. Clever words rattled around Tony’s head as he carefully plucked together a response that scratched the itch to launch himself into Bucky’s lap and kiss him breathless while also making sure he didn’t personally write and sign a death wish. Flirty but not too flirty. Maybe something narcissistic. He could play up his ego. That always worked.

 

Tony stopped. He swivelled again and looked at Bucky curiously. “Hold on. What’d you call me?”

 

Bucky’s eyes widened a fraction, but he didn’t cower or flinch. A wicked grin slid across his lips and his hands kept dancing over the strings as he spoke. “A… dead squid? A cute one.”

 

“No, before that.” Tony waved his hand to indicate rewinding. “Way before that. Sparks. You called me Sparks.”

 

The grin faltered, but Bucky’s hands didn’t. “I did? Ah. I, uh. S’what I call you in my head. Sorry.”

 

Tony’s lips threatened to quirk up at the corners. “Nope. Nuh-uh. You use casual necromancy to nag me about sleeping habits, flirt with me, then make a tactical retreat when I call you out on the nickname?”

 

Bucky nodded slowly. “A tactical retreat doesn’t sound half bad. You got that look in your eye you get when you’re gonna dig your heels in and--”

 

“Come on,” Tony interrupted. “I love nicknames. You have to explain it if they don’t immediately make sense, though. That’s half the fun.”

 

“Y’know Steve gets that same stubborn look? When he plants himself on an idea and refuses to move--”

 

“Using Steve as bait isn’t going to work either, One-Armed-Wonder.” Tony pressed. “See? That one was self explanatory. Sparks isn’t. Which means you have to tell me.”

 

Bucky’s expression soured. He bit his lip and stared at Tony like the answer might present itself neatly if he waited. Hope pounded anxiously in Tony’s chest. The weird kind of pointless hope where he thought that maybe a nickname was a sign of endearment beyond just friendship. It wasn’t. It could be mistaken for such. Easily mistaken, really. Half of him hoped that Bucky would ultimately refuse. Then Tony could go on pretending there was a sliver of a chance that their casual flirting meant something. But the other half of him knew that a nickname Bucky used for Tony only in his own head meant that Bucky had an opinion of Tony. Like when he’d poked Bruce with a stick, he couldn’t help himself.

 

“Fine.” Bucky sighed and looked down at the ukulele. He stopped strumming long enough to tuck his legs up underneath him on the couch and motioned for Tony to sit by him. “Only if you quit working for a bit. If I can’t getcha to sleep, you gotta at least rest.”

 

Tony flicked the off switch on the soldering iron and scrambled to get on the couch quickly, secretly delighted by the way his antics brought the smile back to Bucky’s lips. Still, Tony wasn’t stupid. He sat on the opposite end of the couch. No contact between him and Bucky. Snuggles were dangerous and he was only willing to play with his own hopes so much. Bucky’s eyes stayed firmly on the ukulele when he started softly playing again as Tony got settled. If there was a flash of disappointment on his face, Tony was pretty sure he’d imagined it.

 

“Promise you won’t laugh?” Bucky looked at him nervously. “It’s cheesy.”

 

“I should call up the UN,” Tony said, schooling his face into a serious look. “They’d want to know that the easiest way to defeat the Winter Soldier is to embarrass him by making him talk about cheesy things.”

 

“Shut up.” Bucky laughed and Tony thought he might be able to make his own heart glow again with pride.

 

The way Bucky’s fingers moved over the chords slowed and he plucked simple scales, trying to find a rhythm to focus on. It was quiet and sweet, unintrusive like a back current of white noise or city chatter. Combined with the plush curve of the couch surrounding him, Tony realized Bucky might have had a point about Tony needing more sleep. He kept his eyes firmly on Bucky and ignored how heavy his eyelids were now that he wasn’t working on something.

 

“You’ve got so many projects goin’ on in the lab, y’know?” Bucky started, with kind wistful look that made him look younger. Tony felt like his gaze was too heavy for such soft eyes, so he watched the ukulele instead, grateful for the intermediary point of contact. “And you move between’em like it’s nothing. Like you got it all crammed in your head, but it ain’t crowded. Just fuels you. Gives you more momentum to flicker from idea to idea, leaving a trail of glowin’ inventions behind you.”

 

Tony’s heart sped up and caught somewhere between the ceiling and his throat. He focused on the way the light blue plastic of the ukulele captured the shine of the devices all around them. Holographic diagrams he’d left hanging in the air still glittered electric blue and it criss-crossed over the plastic like netting, catching something impossible to contain and straining to cover the shape of the instrument with each shift. Tony related.

 

“You ain’t a fire proper,” Bucky amended, glancing at Tony in a way that was likely meant to be meaningful but Tony was grasping at straws. “You don’t sit still long enough to burn on one thing. Too quick for that. You’re like a flash, or the moment of inspiration. So. Y’know. A spark.”

 

The ukulele was the only thing that prevented silence from settling between them. For all his supposed speed, Tony felt frozen to the spot. He’d been hoping for something simple. Something about how he used to glow, or how he grated on the nerves. That was… Tony didn’t know what that was.

 

“Wow,” he said cautiously. He looked back up at Bucky’s face and Bucky was undoubtedly nervous. A smile curled the corners of Tony’s lips without his permission and it pushed across his face before he could hold back. The kind of smile that tilted his eyebrows up and made his voice sound a little too raw. “You were right. That _was_ cheesy.”

 

Bucky gave a weak smile as a response but didn’t look at Tony. “Won’t happen again, promise.”

 

“No, no,” Tony shook his head. “I said it was cheesy, I didn’t say _stop_.”

 

Bucky scoffed, but he was smiling too so Tony didn’t feel too bad about it.

 

“Hey, play that piece again,” Tony said, taking mercy on Bucky’s obvious jitters. Tony settled back into the couch’s plush arm, sinking lower into the cushions. He stretched his legs out and Bucky lifted the instrument in an obvious invitation. That was all it took for Tony to decide that his former evaluation of cuddles was irrelevant and slunk down lower until he was half draped over Bucky’s lap. He clenched his teeth down on a yawn before he spoke again. “I want to see how the hand…handles it. For lack of better word. The one with the plucking that you were playing earlier.”

 

“The lullaby?” Bucky shot him a curious look.

 

“Mmhm,” Tony shifted his shoulders against the pillowing and let his eyes fall closed. He was just resting, like he’d promised. He wasn’t going to fall asleep. “Friday, be a good girl and record Buckeyed Pea’s masterpiece for us, hm? I want to see if the joints are moving fast enough.”

 

“They’re fine,” Bucky grumbled, but he was already playing chords that sounded familiar.

 

“Fine?” It was Tony’s turn to scoff. “You’re wearing StarkTech. I don’t settle for fine.”

 

He heard Bucky laugh quietly. “You’re gonna fall asleep.”

 

Tony peeked an eye open. “I’m just resting my eyes. As promised.”

 

Bucky smiled at him. “Uh-huh.”

 

“What, you going to sing me to sleep?” Tony tilted his head challengingly. Bucky missed the next note and he stiffened. Tony started backpedaling. “Joking, just joking. Don’t get stage fright on me now.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, just rest your eyes, Sparks,” Bucky retorted. He was scowling down at the instrument but the look didn’t reach his eyes.

 

The notes washed over Tony like the tide, speeding up then drawing away softly as they wove together in the stillness of the lab. The room itself wasn’t built for acoustics and each pluck echoed distantly off planes of metal and glass, vibrating and returning home to the source. Tony tried to keep his gaze on Bucky, on the anchor point in the sea that was filling up around him and carting him away but his eyes drifted shut. His heartbeat slowed and he felt himself let go of that tightly wound energy he’d been clinging to for days, let himself slow down. It was a rare moment that his brain gave him time enough to breathe and being there, with his legs across Bucky’s lap, held close by one natural and one metal arm was more than enough.

 

A soft voice, singing low and sweet, sewed a light press of weight into Tony’s bones, hooked in like little claws into the exhaustion that overwhelmed him. “ _Oh no, not now. Please, not now. I just settled into the glass half empty, made myself at home._ ”

 

Tony would’ve smiled if he’d had the energy, the notes stole it from him one by one, carrying it away in sharp staccato smoothed over by that voice that was far too full of affection for someone who’d seen the worst the world had to offer.

 

“ _And so why now? Please not now._ _I just stopped believing in happy endings; harbors of my own._ ”

 

Tony felt himself slip away.

 

“ _But you had to come along, didn’t you?"_

 

* * *

 

Tony woke up in his lab, presumably alone. A spare blanket wrapped around him and tucked neatly into the cushions. Tony shifted to look for Bucky, hoping against hope that he’d stayed. The spot where Bucky had been sitting was as vacant as Tony thought it might be. His heart seized up painfully in his chest as he flopped back down on the couch.

 

Something by his shoulder crinkled.

 

Tony shifted and grabbed the post-it note. The writing lilted to the right, looped and drew long on the tallest letters. A small smile found Tony. He knew who’s writing this was even without the signature.

 

_Encore whenever you want it, if it helps you sleep._

 

_Or not. Up to you._

 

_\--B_

 

* * *

 

“Before you ask?” Tony held up one hand defensively while the other set down a metronome next to Bucky a week later. “No, this isn’t a hint. Your rhythm is fine. Just thought it might be useful. You’re moving on to faster pieces and it means less to think about.”

 

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “This is ‘cuz I’m learning Snow, ain’t it?”

 

“Maybe,” Tony admitted guiltily. Bucky groaned. “Listen, I know you’re going to get it. You’re too talented not to. Plus the whole goal is to make it second nature. We’ve gotta get you to pass the pat-your-head-and-rub-your-belly-test.”

 

Bucky gave him the same look he’d used when Tony made an off-hand snide comment about Stark Industries stock plummeting like MySpace after the launch of Facebook.

 

“ _What?_ ”

 

“Pat your head and rub your belly,” Tony repeated. Bucky stared blankly. Tony rolled his eyes and gave a brief demonstration, pointedly ignoring the chuckle Bucky did his best to hide. “Means you can do two contradicting tasks at once. You don’t have to use up brain space thinking about how to do each. We’ve got to make sure you can use that arm with precision even when you aren’t thinking about it.”

 

Bucky tilted his head like a confused puppy. It wasn’t fair.

 

“Why?”

 

Tony snorted. “You’d be a pretty shit Avenger if you were constantly preoccupied with manually operating your own left arm.”

 

He didn’t notice until he reached to straighten out his third stack of papers that Bucky still hadn’t responded. He glanced over his shoulder and immediately regretted it. Wide blue eyes were locked on him like he’d just promised a lifetime supply of ice cream. Before Tony could figure out how he was supposed to make sounds come from his mouth in a way that communicated intelligent messages--talking? Was that talking?--Bucky piped up.

 

“You think I could be an Avenger?”

 

Tony swallowed thickly and turned around to focus on cleaning up his desk again. He wasn’t sure when he’d decided that Bucky was going to stick around for that long. Or why it seemed like such a natural assumption. Well he knew why, but actual physical torture couldn’t have made him admit it outloud.

 

Instead he shrugged and played it off casually. “Well, yeah. What, were you going to work retail?”

 

Bucky didn’t say anything in response, just smiled as he adjusted the metronome and started his four thousandth attempt to get the intro to Snow up to the same speed the Red Hot Chili Peppers boasted.

 

Tony quietly nursed his own existential crisis until he couldn’t handle it. He made a quick excuse, demanded that Bucky learn something by Metallica for the sake of Tony’s sanity, and ducked out to the kitchen.

 

He dug through the meticulously organized cabinets (the kettle was where it belonged, and there were no other signs of impending ambush thankfully) until he landed on a bag of microwave popcorn. He tossed the bag in, poked the appropriate button and leaned on the counter as he waited. The first of the pops sounded like the metronome and, despite all of his willpower, Tony’s thoughts were back on Bucky.

 

It wasn’t a pursuable avenue. He knew that. Bucky could not have possibly been more off limits. No matter how soft his hair looked. Or how much time they spent together in the lab, alone, when Bucky had the whole wide world to explore elsewise. It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t mean anything. He hummed to break the silence between the pops, already missing Bucky’s music. Stillness had always made him twitchy, but now that he felt like he was actively trying to outrun his own damn thoughts he wanted to make use of an entire brass band. Anything to make him stop thinking about holding Bucky’s hand, curling up against him on the couch, listening to him sing, about how he always seemed to be a single impulse away from just leaning over and kissing him.

 

The pops coming from the microwave continued on without him, no regard for rhythm or the way Tony struggled to rein it in. Because he could rein it in. Barely, but he could. He had to.

 

“What’cha humming?” Steve’s voice startled him out of his ongoing trainwreck and Tony latched on to the idea of new company.

 

“Just a piece from the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s iconic album, Stadium Arcadium,” Tony quipped lightly. “Friday, add that to the list of Cultural Stuff For Cap.”

 

“Already done, sir,” Friday replied smoothly.

 

Steve grinned and moved past Tony to do his own foraging in the cabinets. “I know what it is, Tony. I was just makin’ conversation.”

 

“Well, excuse me for trying to keep you up to date, Grandpa.” The microwave beeped and Tony shoved himself away from the counter. “At least it’s something cheerful. After the Incredible Sulk’s performance a week ago, I couldn’t get Vienna Teng out of my head. Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting that high pitched of a voice after hearing him sing it, but y’know. Still good.” Tony was babbling. He knew he was. But he could still steer the conversation safely away from Bucky. He ignored the way Steve stared at him like he’d just lit up a flare and focused on finding a bowl for his snack. “How does she make everything sound like it’s just as likely to haunt you as put you to sleep? Knocked me right out, sure, but--”

 

“He sang to you?” Steve spoke a little too loud. He coughed and tried to cross his arms over his chest like he did whenever he was trying to seem smaller. It had the exact opposite effect. Steve cleared his throat and tried again, like the absolute worst liar in the world. “Bucky. I mean. Bucky sang to you?”

 

Tony squinted. There was a trap in there. Probably. “Yes. Well, not to me. He was practicing a piece. To test the arm. It’s a test of rhythm and reaction speed in the joints and--”

 

“He sang while he knew you could hear him?” Steve’s eyes narrowed on Tony.

 

“Uh.” Tony thought to the night he’d fallen asleep on Bucky. He thought of the note. The one that he still kept in his desk drawer. “Yes? He's got a nice voice for someone who doesn't use it often."

 

Steve’s eyes bugged out of his head and he gaped. “Was he sober?"

 

“I think so?” Tony held his popcorn bowl in front of him like a shield. Being interrogated about Bucky’s singing habits was going to be by far the weirdest way he’d ever been ambushed. And to think, he’d assumed the kettle being where it belonged meant he was safe. “Can he even _get_ drunk?"

 

Steve started to speak, paused, then frowned. He stared at Tony like he didn’t know what to make of him. Tony could safely say he felt the same.

 

When Steve shook out of it finally, Tony was tensed up and ready to bolt. Steve gave an apologetic look and shifted from foot to foot like _he_ was the one with reason to be nervous.

 

“When I was…” Steve paused and frowned at the floor again. “Well.”

 

“Take your time,” Tony barely managed to make sure his voice was level. So much for his blood pressure dropping any time soon.

 

Steve looked sheepish. “Sorry. I just don’t like talking about it. The way things were before I, y’know. The serum.”

 

Oh. Okay. That was a tough subject. General sore spot. Tony maybe hadn’t gone and started World War Three (Four? Five?) by listening to Bucky sing. That was promising. Maybe.

 

“Back when you were pocket sized?” Tony prompted.

 

Steve didn’t look like he appreciated the joke, but it did wonders for Tony’s nerves. And maybe Steve could tell, since he pressed on. “Back before the serum, my breathing would get bad. Really bad. Bucky would keep count for me. Make sure I had something to focus on so that I could breathe right. Sometimes even keep count for me and wake me up if I started suffocating in my sleep.”

 

That… that wasn’t where Tony had expected the conversation to go. He slid onto one of the breakfast nook’s bar stools and set the bowl of popcorn onto the top of the counter. He grabbed a handful of the stuff and popped a kernel in his mouth.

 

“M’sure you know by now how much Buck can fuss at you if he’s got it in his head to take care of you,” Steve scratched at the back of his neck. “He can be, uh…”

 

“Determined? Stubborn as a mule? Weirdly intense about keeping track of sleeping patterns and oddly well versed in REM cycle science?” Tony tried to be helpful. It got a small grin out of Steve so Tony counted it as a victory.

 

“Yeah, I don’t gotta tell you. He’s latched on to you, y’know.”

 

Tony blanched. “Wait. Latched on how?”

 

Steve winced. “That’s what I’m gettin’ at. Even when keeping rhythm was somethin’ that could maybe keep me alive, it took three goddamn years and a full bottle of cheap vodka before he ever sang for me.”

 

Tony’s hand froze with a popcorn kernel in it, halfway to his mouth. He slowly lowered it back to the bowl.

 

“And that was before Hydra shot his self esteem to shit,” Steve added lamely. Steve floundered a bit again, and Tony felt like his heart was going to make a break for it in the silence. Steve affixed him with a stern look and Tony tried his best not to sink back into himself. “I don't know how you feel about him or what your plans are but just... Keep that in mind. And be careful with him."

 

That was a shovel talk. That was an honest to god shovel talk. Tony had been the recipient of enough to know a shovel talk when he heard one and that was absolutely, without a doubt, a shovel talk. But that was the thing about shovel talks. People didn’t give shovel talks to people when they weren’t dating. There was no point in using the whole ‘if you hurt him, they’ll never find your body’ routine if there wasn’t a reason to be worried in the first place. There had to be a reason to be worried. There had to be a chance.

 

There was a chance.

 

Tony stood abruptly and grinned. Steve looked at him like he was crazy which, Tony supposed, was fair. But he didn’t have time to explain. So he called a quick ‘thanks, Steve’ over his shoulder to a baffled recipient and booked it to the garage. He had a plan. But more importantly, he had a chance with Bucky. He wasn’t going to waste it.

 

* * *

 

Tony paced in his lab. He scanned through his files. He took apart and rebuilt his suit twice. He did it all with Bucky playing softly behind him, adding more information to his databases by just picking up new songs. He’d tried to sneakily play the intro to Iron Man, and that’d briefly tugged Tony away from his focus. Bucky grinned at him and Tony got an idea.

 

“Hey. I was thinking,” Tony said. He said it loud and clear before he could consider backing out. He could be brave. He could do this. The fact that he couldn’t feel his knees was impertinent. “You promised an encore. If it’d help me sleep. Right?”

 

Bucky’s hands paused and he gave Tony his full attention. Tony tried not to squirm under it. “I did.”

 

“How about tonight?” Tony suggested. His pulse was fine and he definitely wasn’t dizzy. Nope. “After dinner. My treat.”

 

The smile he cracked was hopeful and Tony felt like he could take off flying without a single repulsor strapped to him. “Yeah? You want dinner and a show?”

 

“Yeah,” Tony swallowed. No backing out now. “I thought it would make for a cute first date. What do you think?”

 

Bucky’s eyes went wide as saucers and he set the ukulele aside before he stood up and took a few cautious steps towards Tony. His grin split his face in half and he practically radiated excitement. “You serious?”

 

“Yeah,” Tony nodded and reached out his hand. Bucky took it without hesitation in both of his own and stepped closer when Tony pulled him in. Tony could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He wasn’t sure how it didn’t deafen Bucky, what with the superhearing, but Bucky was still just looking at him with a big doofy grin on his face. Tony squeezed Bucky’s hands. “Y’know, you’re supposed to say yes. Or no. Either. Bucky, if you don’t answer I might actually die--”

 

Bucky leaned into his space and pressed a kiss to his lips. Tony’s entire world flooded with music, the sound of a metronome, the soft whirring of Bucky’s arm, memories of the ukulele strumming and the sweet comforting lilt of Bucky’s voice. He lost himself to it, lost himself in the kiss like a breath he hadn’t known he needed. When Bucky pulled away, Tony chased after him, capturing his lips again and letting go of Bucky’s hands to gently trace along his jaw, letting his fingers push into Bucky’s hair and keep him close. Bucky hummed happily and Tony melted into it until he had his fill.

 

When he finally let the kiss end, he leaned his head against Bucky’s shoulder and tried to catch his breath. “Well? You still didn’t answer.”

 

Bucky laughed. “That’s a yes, Sparks.”  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ITS DONE ITS DONE ITS DONE. oh man. WHEW. 
> 
> Okay a few things. 
> 
> 1\. Thank you thank you thank you to Ivo, Dreamy, Arrow, Amy, and the rest of the winteriron discord server for helping me push through this monster of a fic. There's no way I could've done it without your help. Seriously. Thank you guys so much. Thank you to the folks especially who've left incredible comments with each update. It's made the whole process fly by and I honest to god go back and read the stuff you've written when I need encouragement. Like. I cannot say thank you enough. You guys have a permanent space in my cold black heart.  
> 2\. The dead squid thing can be seen [here](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/12/dancing-squid-dead-cuttlefish-soy-sauce_n_2663377.html). It's pretty cool.  
> 3\. The song Bucky sings to Tony is [Stray Italian Greyhound by Vienna Teng.]() Because it's a perfect "oh no I've gone and fallen for Tony Freakin' Stark" song.   
> 4\. Our very own [sleepyoceanprince](http://sleepyoceanprince.tumblr.com/) drew some [fantastic art](http://somepic.someserver.de/pics/big/3de9d7bda52060044f57313dae3fb907.png) that I'm gonna link here because !!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU, PRINCE!
> 
> Also, if you're curious? In my mind, my fic [The Trials and Tribulations of Threeways](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11906541) is the spiritual sequel to this fic. It's the start of a series that's eventual stuckony tho, so avoid if that's not your jam. It's also... mostly porn. Just fyi.
> 
> Alright. That's all folks. Be sure to tip your waiter. (and holy shit guys, I can't believe I have to actually say this but no Steve bashing in the comments. _Yikes._ )

**Author's Note:**

> I _did_ warn you. 
> 
> [Come join the 18+ Winteriron server!](https://discord.gg/A32YB6Y) You can yell at me in person there.
> 
> Edit: Guys. Quit leaving Steve bashing comments. Seriously. It's a bummer.


End file.
